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/ 

MADAME GILBEKT’S 
CANNIBAL ^ 

1W{ 


By BENNET COPPLESTONE 

THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS 
THE LAST OF THE GRENVILLES 
JITNY AND THE BOYS 
THE SILENT WATCHERS 


E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



MADAME GILBERT’S 
CANNIBAL 


BY 

BENNET COPPLESTONE 

Author of “ The Lost Naval Papers,” etc. 





E. 


p. 


NEW YORK 


DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 Fifth Avenue 





Copyright, 1920 

By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 


All rights reserved 



FES -7 1921 


Pfintid in the XJnUed States of America 

^CI.A605719 ^'A 


7'85“-Z»». 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER page 

I. His Lordship 1 

II. Madame)) Takes Charge .... 19 

III. The “Humming Top” 35 

IV. In the South Seas 50 

V. Willatopy: Pilot 60 

VI. A Night in the Straits .... 79 

VII. Father and Son 94 

VIII. Tops Island . 112 

IX. Willatopy: Sportsman .... 125 

X. The Coming of the Hedge Lawyer . 155 

XI. The Campaign Opens 167 

XII. The Sailing of the Yawl . . . 183 

XIII. White Blood 200 

XIV. Marie Lambert 215 

XV. Turtle 229 

XVI. Willatopy Spurns His Gods . , . 246 

XVII. Farewell to Tops Island .... 263 
XVIII. The Hand of Madame Gilbert . . 279 

XIX. In the Straits of Sunda .... 296 
XX. Madame Refuses the “Humming 

Top” 304 




V 


I 


MADAME aiLBERT’S 

CANNIBAL 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


CHAPTER I 


HIS LORDSHIP 


ll/f ADAME GILBERT’S war service ended when 
Austria fell out She had been in Italy busied 
with those obscure intrigues for the confounding 
of an enemy which are excused, and dignified, as 
patriotic propaganda. She is satisfied that on the 
Italian Front she, and those who worked with her, 
really won the war. 

The war satisfactorily won, Madame Gilbert 
sped home to revel in the first holiday which she 
had known since August, 1914. She always seems 
to travel with fewer restrictions and at greater 
speed than any except Prime Ministers and com- 
manding Generals. In Italy she is an Italian and 
in France a Frenchwoman — a dazzling Italian and 
a very winning Frenchwoman. The police of both 
countries make smooth her path with their humble 
bodies upon which Madame is graciously pleased 
to trample. I never trouble much about passports 
or credentials,” says she, though I carry them 
just as I do my .25 automatic pistol; in practice I 
find that I need draw my papers as rarely as I 


2 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


draw my gun. Most of the police and officials who 
have seen me once know me when I come again, 
and rush to my assistance.’^ She is never grateful 
for service. I do not believe she knows the senti- 
ment of gratitude. A poor man renders her aid in 
defiance of regulations, and maybe at the risk of 
his neck; she smiles upon him, and the debt is in- 
stantly discharged. He is dismissed until per- 
chance Madame may again have occasion for his 
devotion. Then she reveals the royal accomplish- 
ment of never forgetting a face. Imagine a har- 
assed, weary chef du train^ before whose official 
unseeing eyes travellers flit like figures on a cinema 
screen, imagine such a one addressed by name and 
rank by the most beautiful and gracious of mortal 
women, by a woman who remembers all those little 
family confidences which he had poured into her 
sympathetic ears some twelve months before, by a 
woman who enquires sweetly after his good wife — 
using her pet name — laments that the brave son — 
also accurately named — ^is still missing beyond 
those impenetrable Boche lines. Will not the chef 
du trairiy cooed over thus and softly patted as one 
pats butter, break every French rule the most iron- 
bound to speed Madame upon her way? Of course 
he will. In war time, as in peace time, that is the 
royal manner of Madame Gilbert. She does not 
travel ; she makes a progress. 

Madame came home after the armistice with 
Austria, and, being discharged of liability to the 
propagandist headquarters, found herself a free 
and idle woman. The first time for more than four 
years. 

She had a little money from her late husband 


HIS LORDSHIP 


3 


[(the real one), and had been lavishly paid for her 
services during the war. War prices in London 
seemed quite moderate to her after the extortions 
ef France and Italy. She re-occupied her old rooms 
near Shaftesbury Avenue — and incidentally made 
homeless a pair of exiled Belgians — and fed after 
the fashion that she loved in the restaurants of 
Soho. Madame enjoyed her food. She always 
scoffed at Beauty Specialists. Look at me,’’ she 
>v^ould say. “ Look closely at my skin, at my hair, 
at my teeth if you like. What you see is God’s 
gift improved by exact care for my health. I do 
physical exercises for twenty minutes every night 
and morning. I plunge all over into cold water 
whenever I can get together enough to cover me, 
and I eat and drink whatever I like. I shall go on 
living for just as long as I am beautiful and 
healthy. When I have to think of my digestion 
or of the colour of my skin, I shall say Good-bye 
and go West in a dream of morphia.” Superfi- 
cially, Madame is a Roman Catholic; at heart she 
is a Greek Pagan. 

It was at La Grande Patisserie Beige that Ma- 
dame stumbled across the lawyer who was fated 
to introduce her to the Cannibal of whom she told 
me in Whitehall. 

It was a melancholy afternoon in January, peace 
had not brought plenty — especially of coal — and 
Madame was fortifying herself against the damp 
chills of London by long draughts of the hottest 
coffee and the sweetest and stickiest confectionery 
which even she could relish. About six feet dis- 
tant, on what one may describe as her port quarter, 
sat a middle-aged Englishman whose bagging 


4 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


clothes showed that war rations had dealt sorely 
with his once ample person. Madame, who with- 
out turning her head examined him in critical de- 
tail, judged that his loss in weight was three stone. 
He had the clean, shaven face and alert aspect of 
a lawyer or doctor. In fancied security a little to 
the left and rear of Madame Gilbert the stranger 
stared openly at her cheek and ear and the coils 
of bright copper hair. Madame knew that he was 
watching her, and rather liked the scrutiny. She 
had recognized him at once, and would have been 
slightly humiliated if he had failed to be interested 
in her. It is true that she had met him but once 
before in her life, and that some four years since, 
but as Madame had condescended to recollect him 
— I have said that her memory for faces was royal 
— a failure on his part to remember her would have 
been an offence unpardonable. 

Madame continued to munch sweet stuff, and the 
man, his tea completed, rose, paid his bill, and then 
passed slowly in front of her. He needed encour- 
agement before he would speak. So Madame gave 
it, a quick look and a smile of invitation. He 
bowed. 

“Have I not the honour to meet again the 
Signora Guilberti?” said he. 

“ The Signora Guilberti,” assented Madame, “ or 
Madame Guilbert, or Madame Gilbert, as rendered 
by the rough English tongue. I have stooped to 
anglicise my name,’’ she went on, “ though I hate 
the clipped English version.” She indicated a 
chair, and the lawyer — ^he was a lawyer — sat down. 

“ Is it possible that Madame honours me with 
remembrance? ” 


HIS LORDSHIP 


5 


Let me place you/^ said she, happy in the dis- 
play of her accomplishments, “ and don’t seek to 
guide my memory. It was in the Spring of 1915, 
at a reception in the garden of Devonshire House. 
You were in attendance upon Her Majesty the 
Queen-Mother of Portugal. There were present 
representatives of the Italian Red Cross, for Italy, 
the land of my late husband, had ranged herself 
with the Allies. You are a lawyer of the haute 
noblesse. Your clients are peers and princes, of 
old princes in exile and of new peers in possession. 
I recall you most distinctly, though at that time, 
my poor friend, you were not a little portly, and 
now you are a man shrunken.” 

‘‘And my name?” he asked, flattered that a 
beautiful woman should recall him so distinctly. 

“ It is a strange name — Gatepath. An old Eng- 
lish name redolent of the soil. Roger Gatepath. 
Your Arm bears no prefix of initials and no suffix 
of company. You call yourselves Gatepaths. Just 
Gatepaths, as though your status were territorial.” 

He crowed with pleasure. By an exercise in 
memory, Madame Gilbert had tied him to her 
chariot wheels. 

“ Right ! ” cried he. “ Right in every particular. 
You are the most wonderful of women. For two 
minutes I spoke with you, and that was nearly four 
years ago. I was one of a large party, an insig- 
nificant lawyer lost in a dazzling company of titles. 
Yet you have remembered.” 

Madame left the sense of flattery to soak in. She 
did not spoil the impression that she had made by 
explaining that she would have remembered a 
lackey with just the same accuracy. 


6 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


And you, Madame? he asked. “ Have yon 
been all these years doing war work with the 
Italian Red Cross? The years have passed and left 
no mark upon your face and figure. I, who com- 
fortably filled out my clothes, am shrunken, yet 
time and sorrow have spared you.” 

Nevertheless, I have been pretty hard at work,” 
said Madame briskly. “ I was present at that party 
ostensibly as an official of the Italian Red Cross. 
In fact I was there to see that no harm befell the 
Royal Personages who were in my charge. While 
we moved about those pleasant grounds, chatting 
and sipping tea, I was watching, watching. And 
my hand was never far from the butt of the Webley 
automatic which, slung from my waist, was hidden 
in a bag of silk.” 

Heavens ! ” he cried out. You are ...” 

Hush,” interposed Madame. A lawyer and a 
Gatepath should be more discreet. The war is over, 
and I can tell you now that I fought every minute 
of it in the Secret Service, the Civil branch. I was 
the head woman, the bright particular star, in 
Dawson’s Secret Corps.” 

“ Is it discreet to tell me this? ” he asked, coun- 
tering her reproof of a moment earlier. 

She smiled rather wickedly. ^^Are you not a 
lawyer and a Gatepath? And can one not tell 
anything to a lawyer and a Gatepath? Besides, I 
have sent in my resignation, and am now a free 
woman. It has been a good time, a very good time. 
I have fought devils and mastered devils in Eng- 
land and France and Italy for four long years, and 
now I would rest. You say that time and sorrow 


HIS LORDSHIP 


7 


have spared me. Yet I have known both time and 
sorrow. Have I not lost ...” 

He broke into a babble of apologies. “ I did not 
know ... I did not realise . . . ” 

She waved a hand, and he fell silent. “ I do not 
wear the trappings of woe, for though I am eternally 
widowed, I glory in my loss. It was in the rear- 
guard at Caporetto, when all less gallant souls had 
fled, that my Guilberti fell.” 

Of course from that moment Gatepath was her 
slave. She had flattered him and humbugged him 
as she flattered and humbugged all of us. Madame 
had no designs against Gatepath, yet she could not 
forbear to triumph over him. One never knows,” 
she said, when one may need a devoted friend, 
and need him badly. I always look forward.” 

Two or three weeks later Madame found a letter 
at her club signed Gatepaths.” It was the club 
in Dover Street with those steep steps down which 
the members tumble helplessly in frosty weather. 
Madame calls it The Club of Falling Women.” 

It appears that Gatepath, hunting for an adviser 
of ripe wisdom, had sought out the Chief of Daw- 
son and lately of Madame, and laid bare his pres- 
sing troubles. The Chief is one of those rare men 
to whom all his friends, and they are as the stars 
in number, go seeking counsel in their crimes and 
follies. Nothing shocks him, nothing surprises 
him. And from the depths of his wise, humorous, 
sympathetic mind, he will almost always draw 
waters of comfort. Suppose, for example, one had 
slain a man and urgently sought to dispose of the 
corpse — a not uncommon problem in crowded cities 
— to whom could one more profitably turn than to 


8 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


the Chief of His Majesty’s Detective Service? Or 
if, in a passing fit of absence of mind, one had wed- 
ded three wives, and the junior in rank began to 
suspect the existence of one or more seniors; do 
we not all suffer from lapses of memory? One 
does not put these problems before the Chief as 
one’s own — there is a decent convention in these 
matters — but, of course, he knows. To know all is 
to pardon all, and there is very little that the Chief 
does not know about you or me. 

The family solicitor of peers and princes poured 
into the Chief’s ear the fantastic cause of his pres- 
ent distresses. He delivered himself of the story 
in all seriousness, for it was dreadfully serious to 
him. Never in all his experience, and in that of 
his century-old firm, had anything so dreadfully 
serious occurred. The Chief controlled himself 
until the end was reached, and then exploded in a 
yell of laughter. 

It is nothing to laugh at,” grumbled Gatepath. 

“ Not for you, perhaps. But to my mind the 
situation is gorgeous. Has this man the legal right 
of succession? ” 

Beyond a doubt,” groaned Gatepath. His 
father saw to that.” 

“ Then why not leave matters to take their legal 
course? ” asked the Chief, still laughing. The 
House of Lords will be the better for a shock. They 
are a dull lot. And your lively friend will ad- 
minister the shock all right.” 

Roger Gatepath spread out his hands in agony. 

But it is one of the oldest peerages in the coun- 
try, as old almost as the Barony of Arundel. Can’t 


HIS LORDSHIP 


9 


you see how frightful it will be for the family if 
this — this person — ^is allowed to succeed?” 

There is no question of allowing him. If he is 
the legal heir he must succeed. The family must 
just put him in their pipe and smoke him. What 
else can they do?” 

“ I thought that you, with all your experience of 
the South, might suggest something. Would it 
not be possible to buy the man off — or might he 
not 

“How can you buy him off when he is the heir? 
You people are nothing but trustees, who must 
account to him for every penny. If he claims the 
peerage and estates, you must accept him. You 
admit that legally he is the heir. I can see what is 
in your mind, but it won’t do, Gatepath, it won’t 
do. If you try any hanky-panky, that pretty neck 
of yours will find itself in a hempen collar. Now 
if it was only a case for judicious kidnapping ” 

Gatepath looked around anxiously. The men 
were alone in a recess of the club smoking-room. 
“ Yes,” he whispered eagerly. “ Yes, go on.” 

“ I shall not do anything of the sort. You are a 
nice sort of family solicitor, Gatepath. Apart from 
the personal danger of playing tricks, can’t you see 
that your interest lies with the bouncing heir, not 
with the snuffy old family? Don’t be an ass. Bring 
him home, give the House of Lords the sensation of 
their placid lives, and let the good old British pub- 
lic enjoy a week of laughter. How they will bellow 
with joy. And the newspapers! I can see. Gate- 
path, that your agreeable young heir is going to 
be the Success of the Season.” 

“ You are not very helpful,” groaned Gatepath. 


10 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


There must be a solution; there must be some 
way of shielding the Family from this frightful 
humiliation.’’ 

The interview with the Chief was a complete 
failure, and Gatepath parted from his old friend 
both hurt and angry. He had not expected ribald 
laughter in so grave a social crisis. The Chief 
must be a Radical, a Socialist, even a Bolshevik, 
one empty of all decent political principles. 

It was on his way home that Gatepath bethought 
him of Madame Gilbert. She, that beautiful, loyal- 
hearted woman, would not laugh. He remembered 
the glitter of unshed tears in the violet eyes when 
she had bade him farewell. It was his tactless 
hand upon the open wound of Caporetto which had 
aroused those tears. He remembered also that Ma- 
dame was free, and that she had been trained to 
do the ruthless, unscrupulous work of the Secret 
Service. She did not look either ruthless or un- 
scrupulous, and it was in a strictly professional 
sense that Gatepath connected her with these un- 
feminine attributes. In his troubles Gatepath 
needed advice and sympathy, and Madame Gilbert, 
to his mind, filled the double bill. I do not know 
how far Gatepath seriously expected Madame to 
resolve his appalling difficulties. I suspect that he, 
a young bachelor of fifty or so, was glad of any ex- 
cuse to persuade Madame to sit beside him and 
hold his hand. At any rate he did not know, now 
that the Chief had failed him, any man or any 
woman who was more likely than Madame to be 
sweetly helpful. 

When Madame read the formal typewritten com- 
munication signed ^‘Gatepaths” she grinned. It 


HIS LORDSHIP 


11 


did not surprise her that a recent victim should 
seek the excuse of urgent business to gain access 
to her presence. The letter asked for an appoint- 
ment at a time and place agreeable to her conveni- 
ence. It jumped with her bizarre humour to sug- 
gest Charing Cross Station at two o’clock in the 
morning, but ultimately she rang up Roger on the 
telephone, and fixed an hour in the forenoon at his 
own office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. To Charing 
Cross Station at two o’clock in the morning she 
would have gleefully gone in the long black cloak 
and velvet mask of a conspirator, but for the in- 
terview in Lincoln’s Inn Fields she was pleased to 
cast herself in the part of a woman of business, 
severe, solemn business. Gatepath’s welcome was 
nervous; he scarcely recognised in the solemnly 
severe woman of business the bereaved widow of 
La Grande Patisserie Beige. Madame seated her- 
self, spread out her wide sombre skirts, and pre- 
pared to listen to the urgencies which had impelled 
the adviser of peers and princes to seek her co- 
operation. 

Gatepath got to work at once. He saw that Ma- 
dame expected value for her complaisance, and he 
gave it in full measure. 

You will have heard, Madame, of the family of 
Toppys, pronounced Tops. Like other famous fam- 
ilies of Devon when the Conqueror came they were 
at home. In the twelfth century they were the re- 
cognised holders of the Barony of Topsham, a vil- 
lage and manor on the River Exe. Topsham means 
the Home of Toppys, pronounced Tops. The title 
fell into abeyance for a couple of centuries, and the 
Manor of Topsham has long since passed to the 


n 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Conrtenays. But her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth 
revived the ancient barony. Ever since then, for 
three hundred and fifty years, the Head of the 
Family of Toppys has been Baron of Topsham. 
We ” — Gatepath, in his excited interest, identified 
himself with the famous family of Toppys, pro- 
nounced Tops — we are allowed to date the peer- 
age from the original writ of summons, and the 
Lord Topsham whose lamented death occurred last 
year was the Twenty-Seventh Baron. I wish you 
to appreciate the almost unapproachable lineage 
of this family upon whom has fallen a disaster 
without parallel in history. The Twenty-Seventh 
Baron is dead; his successor will be the twenty- 
eighth. Have you got that? ’’ 

I have,’^ said Madame sweetly. She longed to 
add Audited and found correct.’’ It would sound 
splendidly businesslike, but might give offence as 
frivolous. 

Some twenty years ago one of the brothers of 
the late Lord Topsham left this country, and set- 
tled on an island in the Torres Straits. It was an 
extraordinary thing to do for one who was neither 
a wastrel nor a criminal. The Hon. William Top- 
pys was neither. My father, who knew him well, 
has told me that he was only mad. To be mad is a 
misadventure which may overtake the most cau- 
tious of us — ancient Houses are prone to develop 
a reputable and characteristic species of insanity 
—but to indulge an individual madness to the dis- 
grace of one’s Family is a crime. In the legal and 
conventional sense the Hon. William Toppys was 
not a criminal, yet he committed the worst of 
crimes against his ancient and glorious lineage.’^ 


HIS LORDSHIP 


13 


The body of Roger Gatepath swelled with wrath 
until it almost filled his pre-war clothes. 

Madame longed to say ^‘Good old Bill,” but 
again refrained. The story was beginning to 
amuse her. 

The Hon. William Toppys settled upon an 
island in the Torres Straits, and became what is 
called locally a beachcomber. This degradation 
was not forced upon him by poverty. He was not 
wealthy, but from his late mother he derived a com- 
petence — some few hundreds of pounds a year. We 
acted for his trustees, and regularly remitted his 
dividends to a bank in Thursday Island. Perhaps, 
Madame, it will assist you if I ring for an atlas.” 

^^Do not trouble,” said Madame sweetly. “I 
have a rough working acquaintance with ge- 
ography. Thursday Island is a little to the north 
of Queensland. It is a centre for pearl fishing. 
That is why I remember the place.” 

The Hon. William Toppys built himself a hut 
on a small islet in the Straits — and married a 
native woman. A Melanesian woman.” 

Married? ” enquired Madame. “ How? Native 
fashion, sans ceremonie?^’ 

‘‘Unhappily, no. His marriage was celebrated 
and registered at the Melanesian Mission’s station 
on Thursday Island. It was — I repeat unhappily 
— as legal a contract as your own marriage.” 

“You shock me,” said Madame primly, though 
she struggled against laughter. “ Would you have 
had the Hon. William Toppys live — in sin — with 
a native woman?” 

“ I would,” shouted Gatepath. 

Madame covered her face with her hands and 


14 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

her silks — her businesslike silks — rustled with emo- 
tion. 

It pains me to express sentiments which you 
must regard as immoral — the silks went on rus- 
tling — but I must look at that fatal marriage from 
the point of view, the just point of view, of the 
ancient family of Toppys.’^ 

Pronounced Tops,’’ whispered Madame, as she 
came up to breathe. 

“ The Hon. William Toppys sent us word of his 
marriage. That was nearly twenty years ago. He 
also, with unparalleled effrontery, communicated 
to his brother, the late Lord Topsham, the dates of 
birth of his son and his two daughters. Those 
births were all registered in due form at Thursday 
Island. If the Hon. William Toppys had designed 
to humiliate, to outrage, the most ancient and hon- 
ourable Family in Devon — save only that of the 
Courtenays — he could not have gone about the busi- 
ness more thoroughly or systematically. He is 
dead. He died in 1912. But I cannot speak good 
of the dead. He committed a crime, a series of 
crimes. He lawfully married a Melanesian woman 
and he lawfully begat a son and heir ! ” 

What about the two daughters? ” whispered 
Madame in throes of suffocation. 

‘‘The daughters don’t matter,” said Gatepath. 
“ He could have had a dozen if he pleased. The 
Barony of Topsham descends to heirs male, not to 
heirs general.” 

At this point Madame fell from grace. It had 
become obvious to one less alert than she that 
the lawfully begotten son of the Hon. William Top- 
pys (pronounced Tops), and the Melanesian wife. 


HIS LORDSHIP 


15 


was the half-caste Twenty-Eighth Baron of Top- 
sham, and that the ancient Family of Toppys was 
wild about it. So was Gatepath — ^wild, furious. 
He gesticulated, his cheeks puffed out. In him was 
embodied, for Madame to see and laugh over, all 
the fury of all the Toppyses, male and female. She 
could not help but laugh — ^in peals, till the tears 
came. 

Roger Gatepath groaned. I did think that you, 
Madame, would refrain from ribaldry. Consider 
the position of my clients. This horror that is 
come upon them is not an occasion for laughter.” 

“I am really awfully sorry,” gasped Madame, 
wiping her eyes. “ It must be dreadful for you all. 
But to a stranger like me, it is frightfully funny.” 

'‘You won’t think it funny when you hear the 
rest of my story,” growled Gatepath. " But per- 
haps I had better stop.” 

" Oh ! please don’t. I am immensely interested, 
and thrilled. I want to hear every word. You tell 
the story so splendidly, Mr. Gatepath, that I should 
be wild if you stopped now.” 

Gatepath continued. The sacred fire of vicarious 
family indignation had been somewhat abated by 
Madame’s laughter, but he warmed up as he pro- 
ceeded. He was convinced that the gracious Ma- 
dame Gilbert would share his horror when the tale 
reached its tragic close. " You may ask how, after 
350 years of direct succession, the ancient and hon- 
ourable Family of Toppys should have failed of 
heirs — except this half-caste spawn of a Melanesian 
savage. It is the war that has brought this dis- 
aster upon us. The only son of the late Lord Top- 
sham was killed at Ypres early in the war. The 


16 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


two sons of the second brother were in the Flying 
Corps, and fell with so many other honourable gen- 
tlemen in the spring of 1918. Bot’. were killed 
within a week. Their death was a blow from which 
Lord Topsham never recovered. His own brothers 
had both gone before, and the casualties of war 
had transferred the succession to that coffee- 
coloured monster in the Torres Straits. Lord Toj)- 
sham just withered away. I ventured to urge a 
second marriage, but his lordship had no heart to 
struggle. Rather than give heirship to the beach- 
comber’s brat I would have married a housemaid 
by special licence and begat a son though I never 
lived to see him born.” 

“ It might have been a useless daughter,” mur- 
mured Madame unkindly. 

Gatepath growled. 

Madame Gilbert now pulled herself together. 
Her ribald laughter had sorely weakened her in- 
fluence over the solicitor of peers and princes, and 
she felt impelled to regain it. It was now her role 
to become sympathetically helpful. 

Are you sure, Mr. Gatepath, that you do not 
make this grievous affair worse by exaggerating it? 
The Hon. William Toppys was an English gentle- 
man. He went in for the simple life as a beach- 
comber with a Melanesian wife, but he must have 
remained a gentleman by instinct. His son may 
not be so very brown— some half-castes are almost 
white — and has probably, almost surely, been 
brought up as a gentleman. Why not make the 
best of the situation, bring him home, and let me 
take the boy in hand? I will make of him a cavalier 


HIS LORDSHIP 


17 


almost worthy to belong to the ancient House of 
Toppys.” 

^^It is impossible/’ said Gatepath, and his air 
was that of Sir Henry Irving in Macbeth, “ I have 
seen the Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham with 
my own eyes.” 

" That was very sporting of you,” cried Madame 
in admiration. “ Did you go out all alone to the 
Torres Straits and beard the lion in his den?” 

went, and I went alone. It was a fearful 
journey. The war was still raging, and it strained 
all the influence of Gatepaths to secure me a pas- 
sage to America in a returning troopship. Thence 
I travelled to San Francisco, got a Japanese 
steamer to Yokohama, another Japanese steamer 
to Singapore, and yet another — a small one 
which rolled abominably — to Thursday Island. 
I cannot tell you, without reference to my diary, 
how many weeks and months I was tossed about 
the loathsome deep. The schooner from Thursday 
Island to the haunt of the late Hon. William Top- 
pys was the worst of my tortures. It was crammed 
with nude men and women of all colours from pale 
olive to dark walnut, and it smelt — like a hogshead 
of rancid fat. The South Sea Islands are a ro- 
mantic fraud, Madame. They reek to Heaven, and 
brew so many different brands of stinks that one 
can never get acclimated. Can you wonder that I, 
who once was well favoured in person, am now an 
old man, shrunken, wizened into premature senility 
before my time? I arrived at my journey’s end, 
and there, Madame, I saw the young man whom 
you so very kindly propose to take in hand and 


18 


MADAME GIIBEKT’S CANNIBAL 


make a cavalier almost worthy of the House of 
Toppys. I saw his lordship with my own eyes.” 

‘^And was he so very impossible?” asked Ma- 
dame, for the solicitor of the Toppyses had stopped, 
struck dumb by his emotion. 

Impossible ! ” he shrieked. His lordship, the 
Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham, is a naked Can- 
nibal running about the beach with a epear.” 


CHAPTER II 


MADAME TAKES CHARGE 

T T is fortunate that Madame Gilbert had already 
**“ indulged her indecent sense of humour. Had 
she exploded at this tragic moment I should have 
been robbed of my story. I am sure from what I 
know of Roger Gatepath that he would have thrust 
her shrieking from his room, and written her off 
for ever as unworthy to be associated with the an- 
cient and still exalted House of Toppys. She shook, 
gurgled desperately for an instant, and then com- 
posed her features to a becoming gravity. It was 
a masterly effort for one with her vivid imagina- 
tion. She has told me that before her, plain to see, 
she visualised the heir of the Barony of Topsham, 
a broad, grinning, coffee-coloured face rising above 
the crimson and ermine robes of a peer of England. 
In one hand he held the patent of his barony, in 
the other a stabbing spear. It was a vision gor- 
geous. . . .Yet with this figure of fun before her 
inward eyes she choked down her laughter.' It was 
an heroic effort. 

Roger Gatepath lay back in his chair, rent and 
exhausted by professional suffering. Madame 
whipped out her case and offered one of those 
favourite Russian cigarettes from which even the 
Bolshevists could not bereave her. Gatepath 
grabbed and smoked. He would have grabbed and 
19 


20 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

smoked opium, hashish, anything which could for 
an instant unravel the tangled skein of care. 

^^You are a great woman, Madame,” he mur- 
mured ; not even your cigarettes are in the least 
like anyone else’s. Please give me another.” 

Now,” said Madame briskly, when the calm of 
deep narcotic satisfaction had smoothed out the 
lawyer’s face, I want to hear lots more. I am 
intrigued, and your story has got no farther than 
a thunderous beginning.” 

It has gone no farther, as yet,” said he, and 
can go no farther until the half-caste savage of the 
Torres Straits learns of his monstrous heirship.” 

So you travelled fifteen thousand miles in the 
crisis of war, when all men and women within 
reach of a newspaper thrilled with alternate hope 
and fear, just to look once at the Twenty-Eighth 
Baron Topsham and then to return. Months of 
hardship going out, and months more of hardship 
coming back. Just to look once without speaking. 
You are a remarkable man, Mr. Gatepath. I 
should, at least, have made his intimate acquain- 
tance. He may be less of a savage Cannibal than 
he looks.” 

“ I went to the hut of the Hon. Mrs. William 
Toppys,” explained the lawyer. « It is, I am in- 
formed, a high-class hut, thatched on walls and 
roof with leaves of sago palm. No aristocrat of 
the South Seas had ever a finer or more luxurious 
residence. Yet it is a hut of one room in which 
the Hon. Mrs. William Toppys, her two daughters, 
and her son— known to the world of his little island 
as ' Willatopy live, eat, and sleep, the four of 
them indifferent to the most primitive dictates of 


MADAME TAKES CHARGE 


21 


decency. At the back is constructed a cookhouse. 
Neither edifice boasts a chimney. The Family have 
resided for years in this loathsome hovel unat- 
tended by the humblest of menials. The Right 
Honourable Lord Topsham ” — driven by his legal 
conscience, Gatepath never withheld from the Heir 
his lawful title — ‘^The Right Honourable Lord 
Topsham has not even a black footboy.” 

Madame gurgled. He has small occasion for a 
valet, I expect.’’ 

Gatepath groaned. “ A bootlace about his mid- 
dle, and a few feathers stuck in his frizzy hair, 
seemed to constitute his entire toilet.” 

It is evident,” observed Madame, “ that the 
late beachcomber, the Hon. William Toppys, was 
a very thorough artist. Having determined upon 
the simple life, he never looked back. His wife re- 
mained a native, his son and daughters were 
brought up in exact accordance with native model. 
We can dismiss the one living and sleeping room 
and the absence of menials as in no sense derog- 
atory to the dignity of Toppys. Have you no worse 
to tell of the Family than that? ” 

Gatepath wriggled uneasily. “His Lordship,” 
muttered he, after a blushing pause — Madame was 
privileged to see a lawyer blush — “ did me the 
honour to prod me with his spear, in the middle of 
my back.” 

“ Wherefor this outrage? ” 

“I ventured to inform his honourable mother, 
who stood outside the hut, that the day was fine.” 

“And he misdoubted your intentions?” Ma- 
dame let herself go for a moment and laughed, that 
rippling laugh which plays on the hearts of her 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


victims like flame on wax. widow, I have 

heard, is in little respect in the South Seas, and 
the Heir of Toppys drew cold iron in defence of' 
his mother, so scandalously accosted by a forward 
stranger. Come, come, Mr. Gatepath, this incident 
suggests no savagery. It may indicate that the 
heart of the boy is white after all.” 

“ He prodded me in the back, he pursued me to 
my boat, and would doubtless have killed and eaten 
my body had I not fled with incredible speed. I 
have never run so fast since I won the hundred 
yards sprint for Cambridge at the Queen’s Club.” 

You and the Hon. Mrs. William Toppys must 
have been deeply absorbed in the beauties of the 
weather when the Cannibal with his spear broke in 
upon the pretty conversation.” 

On my honour I did but speak with her for a 
minute. She is light of colour and of a counte- 
nance not disagreeable. Her English is not fluent, 
yet she speaks it with intelligence and has the lan- 
guage of social courtesy. Her accent too is not 
unpleasant, she softens the hard English conso- 
nants, and gives full tone value to the rich English 
vowels.” 

It seems to have been a very fine day, and taken 
a lot of talking about,” said Madame drily. 

I wanted to discover why the Hon. William 
Toppys had married the woman, and why he made 
so certain of the proofs of his marriage.” 

Quite so. And while engaged upon your re- 
searches, discovered that the Hon. William Toppys 
was not so very mad after all? ” 

'' No,” declared the lawyer stoutly. “ He was a 
mad and wicked criminal to marry her. But I 


MADAME TAKES CHARGE 


23 


could realise that some twenty years earlier, in the 
first bloom of her pale brown beauty, the Hon. Mrs. 
William Toppys was worth the sacrifice of any 
man's moral scruples. I could, as a youngster, 
have loved her myself. But then I should never 
have made the hideous, the ghastly blunder of mar- 
rying her — except in native fashion." 

^^We progress," said Madame, laughing again. 

The mother of the Cannibal has found favour in 
your sight, and the Cannibal ran you down to the 
boat lest you should find favour in hers. And how 
long, pray, was this island idyll in the playing? " 
I was less than half-an-hour on the island." 

‘^So you came, saw, and conquered all within 
half-an-hour. And then there broke in the heir of 
Toppys with his most intrusive spear. It was ex- 
ceedingly tactless of him. A widow, especially a 
South Sea widow, would not have tarried long in 
the wooing. I can understand now that your feel- 
ings towards the heir must be tempestuous. A 
journey of fifteen thousand miles, a talk for less 
than half-an-hour with a pale brown widow of fas- 
cinating accent and aspect. Then the crushing ar- 
rival of the too jealous son, the rending asunder 
of scarce joined hearts, the flight to the boat with- 
out a moment of farewell, and — fifteen thousand 
weary miles of return. In your place, Mr. Gate- 
path, I should whole-heartedly loathe that doubly 
inconvenient son." 

“ You are pleased to be witty at my expense, 
Madame Gilbert," grumbled Gatepath. ^‘And we 
wander sadly from the purpose of the interview 
with which you have honoured me this morning. 


24 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


That was to talk about the Cannibal, and not about 
the Cannibal’s mother.” 

Proceed,” said Madame, lying back in her chair, 
and lighting yet another cigarette. I am dying 
to make his further acquaintance.” 

You are an astute woman, Madame Gilbert, 
and will already have grasped that the Trustees of 
the settled estates of the Barony of Topsham — of 
whom I am the legal adviser — are in a position pro- 
foundly embarrassing. They don’t know what the 
devil to do, and I don’t know what the devil of 
advice to give. Our strictly legal duty is beyond 
doubt. We should notify the heir of his succession, 
and take the necessary steps to have him seised of 
his ancestral lands and revenues. They are not 
great although they represent a fair competence, 
even in these days of exorbitant estate duties. 
There are wealthy members of the Family of Top- 
pys engaged in business pursuits, but they, though 
deeply interested, are not at present in the direct 
line of succession. Some eight months have passed 
since Lord Topsham died, and no steps have been 
taken to acquaint the Twenty-Eighth Baron of his 
— of his damnable ill-fortune. We ought to have 
moved long since, we must move soon, yet how, 
and in what direction, can we move? I went to 
the Torres Straits to spy out the land and to con- 
sider a course of action. I have returned baffled. 
The Trustees are baffled. The Family of Toppys is 
baffled. We cannot delay much longer. The Family 
of Toppys is of the highest distinction, the Barony 
of Topsham is a part of the National history. A 
failure on the part of the Trustees to produce an 
heir cannot pass unnoticed. There are in my pro- 


MADAME TAKES CHARGE 


25 


fession many unscrupulous practitioners, hedge 
lawyers, who would greedily wallow in the chance 
of hunting up an heir and s tearing his interest and 
business for themselves. The Trustees cannot per- 
mit this; Gatepaths cannot permit this. It were 
better that my firm should act for a cannibal lord- 
ship than that he should be the helpless prey of a 
legal pirate. And yet if Gatepaths did what is their 
undoubted duty — ^namely, notified the heir and rep- 
resented him — they would infallibly lose the valu- 
able, the very valuable, connections of all the other 
members of the family. We are in a horrid quan- 
dary. We cannot let slip from among our clients 
the Baron of Topsham, and we cannot let slip the 
other members, some of them very wealthy, of the 
House of Toppys. But how to keep both passes un- 
derstanding. I have mentioned the risk, and it is 
no small risk, lest some hedge lawyer should get 
his nose upon the trail of His Cannibal Lordship 
of the Torres Straits. There is another risk which 
will become more insistent with every month of 
delay. The Twenty-Eighth Baron is nineteen 
years old, an age of full virile maturity in the 
South Sea. He may marry any day some native 
woman, and raise, with the utmost celerity, a crop 
of savage heirs to his body. If, at the instigation 
of his mother, he follows the detestable practice of 
his late father, the marriage will be legal by our 
law, and the spawn of it legitimate. Should this 
further disaster have time to mature — and nothing 
is more certain of consummation in a minimum of 
time — the coffee-coloured Cannibal line of Toppys 
will be impregnably entrenched. Nothing but a 
special Act of Parliament could bomb it out, and 


26 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


in these days of revolutionary socialism, the House 
of Commons would never pass a Disabling Act. 
The ribald cynicism of many Members would lead 
them to enjoy the gross humiliation of the Upper 
Chamber. We can look for no help from Parlia- 
ment; we must look to our own brains and hands. 
I have gone to the Torres Straits and failed. It 
does not follow that Madame Gilbert would also 
fail.” 

Wait a bit,” quoth Madame. I must know a 
lot more and see a lot more before I take any hand 
in this business. I confess frankly that my sym- 
pathies lean towards the Cannibal. He, the un- 
doubted heir of an ancient family, is without 
friends in a far island. He is the son of his father, 
and, despite his skin, must be half white in blood. 
He may be more than half white in heart and 
brain. What have you against him except the rich 
Melanesian infusion in his veins? Nothing except 
the exquisite simplicity of his dress — ^you said, I 
recall, that he wore a bootlace about his middle 
and adorned his frizzy hair with feathers. Your 
visit was on the edge of the Southern summer at 
a season when even you or I would gladly travel 
light in clothing. I feel that a feather headdress 
and a petticoat of stripped banana leaves would 
become me mightily. Our Mother Eve was red 
golden like me and must have shone gloriously in a 
fig-leaf apron. If the Twenty-Eighth Baron Tops- 
ham were really a savage cannibal, in fact as well 
as by birth, I might perhaps share your wrath and 
agitation. But at present I am frankly on his 
side. His appearance in the House of Lords would 
be startling, but the old dears would be the better 


MADAME TAKES CHARGE 


n 


for a shock. So would London society. I confess 
that I look forward to his succession with intense 
amusement. It would be perfectly lovely, une 
tizarrerie superhe/’ 

“You will excuse my inability to appreciate 
your levity,’’ growled Gatepath. 

“ That is why you are baffled by this little domes- 
tic problem,” said Madame. “ If you and the por- 
tentous Family of Toppys had enough of humour 
to take yourselves less seriously, you would perceive 
that all the world will laugh when the disclosure 
comes. It is more agreeable to laugh with the 
world than to be laughed at by it. You think that 
your retainers, male and female, discreetly solemn 
in your presence, are desolated by the misfortunes 
of the family. Believe me when I tell you that they 
are howling with derision. Your men-servants 
and your maid-servants within your gates are roar- 
ing together over the Family humiliation. Your 
ox and your ass, and your old family coach-horse 
are gaping at you. Your chauffeur, educated may- 
be in a modern Radical school of motoring, is 
inclined by your misfortunes towards belief in a 
righteous Providence. Even your Rolls-Royce for- 
gets its aristocratic ghostly calm and gurgles. 
Make up your ancient Toppys’ minds, Mr. Gate- 
path, that no man or woman in this modern world 
cares a depreciated tuppence for the woes of an 
historic peerage. You and your Family of Toppys 
suffer from distorted vision. Laugh, man, laugh, 
and recover some sense of perspective. Put your- 
self outside this museum of mouldy antiquities, 
of which you are the hereditary legal adviser, and 


28 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


regard them for a moment from a point of detach- 
ment. Have yon got that? Now laugh.” 

But the gloom upon the countenance of Gate- 
path remained unbroken. It was less the embar- 
rassments of Toppys that obsessed him than the 
predicament into which his firm had drifted. If 
he stood by the Heir he lost the business of Toppys ; 
if he stood by the Family he resigned the Heir to 
some intrusive perspicuous supplanter. The firm 
would get left either way. It is not surprising 
that Roger Gatepath and humour had become 
strangers. 

The conspirators sat speechless for the space of 
two minutes, which is a long, long time of silence 
between Western people. It was Madame, of 
course, who broke the pause of contemplation. 

Who will benefit? ” asked she suddenly. 

^^I donT understand,” muttered Gatepath. 

‘‘1 am not good to play with,” said Madame, 
rather sternly. ‘^Not even Dawson, not even his 
great Chief, may play tricks with Madame Gil- 
bert. And they know.it. Come, Mr. Gatepath. 
You did not summon me here to tell a pleasing 
story of the embarrassments of the Toppys Family. 
At the back of your mind you had a plan. You 
purposed to ask me to pull chestnuts out of a fire 
which is too hot for the fingers of Trustees and 
Gatepaths. You are acting in the interests of 
someone who conceals himself. Who is it? Who 
will become the heir of Topsham should Madame 
Gilbert be persuaded to kidnap or assassinate the 
inconvenient Twenty-Eighth Baron? Who pro- 
poses to make himself the Twenty - Ninth in suc- 
cession to that noble line? ” 


MADAME TAKES CHARGE 


29 


Gatepath shuddered at her plain speaking. 
But he had the sense to see that with Madame all 
cards must be placed upon the table. Already 
she knew enough to be dangerous. If she went 
forth in anger then there might be, there cer- 
tainly would be, the very Devil to pay. 

“ The next heir,’’ said he, shortly, “ is Sir J ohn 
Toppys, Baronet of Wigan.” 

‘‘And who is Sir John Toppys who has chosen 
so very unattractive a spot as the seat of his 
baronetcy? ” 

“ He is first cousin of the late Lord. Their com- 
mon grandfather was the Twenty - Fifth Baron. 
Sir John will infallibly succeed if the senior line 
fails. I agree that Wigan is as lacking in residen- 
tial amenities as Dundee or Motherwell, but it has 
been a very mine of golden wealth to the junior 
branch of Toppys. Coal and iron, Madame, are 
more productive than diamonds. Sir John Toppys 
was rich before the war ; now he has advanced to 
wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. His great 
services to the State have been plenteously re- 
warded in spite of the exactions of the disgraceful 
excess profits duty. At his works, guns have been 
made in thousands, and shells in millions. He and 
those like him have as surely won the war as have 
our heroic soldiers and sailors — who, it must be 
confessed, have received less adequate rewards. 
The wealth and position of Sir John Toppys are 
such that he could command a peerage from any 
British Government. But to him, a true Toppys 
of the ancient line — ^though of a junior branch — a 
newly gilt title would have no value. Is he not at 
this moment heir presumptive of the Twenty- 


so 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Eighth Baron — he of the Torres Straits — and can 
one feel surprise that he resents and detests the 
shameful marriage of the Hon. William Toppys, 
by means of which his branch of the Family has 
been supplanted? I am legal adviser to Sir John 
Toppys, and between these close walls, Madame, I 
may say that he would stick at nothing to secure 
— the removal — of the — obstruction.’’ 

“ You and Sir John Toppys are a pretty pair,” 
quoth Madame. ‘‘For sheer lawlessness, even in 
time of war, I have come upon nothing which can 
compare with you. You deliberately conspire to 
compass the — the removal — of the Heir of Tops- 
ham, and you do not apparently give heed to the 
risks which both of you are running. You think 
in your foolishness that if I were bribed by the 
gold of Wigan to carry through the enterprise, the 
pretty neck of Madame Gilbert would be alone 
imperilled. Permit me to scatter your illusions. 
Should Madame Gilbert hang for her mercenary 
zeal in the interests of a white succession Sir John 
Toppys and Roger Gatepath would stand beside 
her upon the drop. We should be an engaging 
party,” murmured Madame, contemplating the vi- 
sion with enjoyment. “Madame Gilbert in the 
centre by honour of her sex and her superior 
infamy, Roger to her left, John on her right. At 
the word ‘ Go ’ — or whatever is tastefully appro- 
priate to the ceremony — ^the hangman would pull 
the lever, and the three culprits would disappear 
into^ what is termed prophetically The Pit. At 
the inquest — I always think that an inquest after 
a legal hanging is a superb touch of British humour 
^evidence would be given to prove that the triple 


MADAME TAKES CHARGE 


31 


execution had been well and truly carried out, and 
that death was instantaneous. We should all three 
be buried in quicklime within the precincts of the 
jail.” Madame smacked her lips. “ No, Mr. Gate- 
path, not even for this gratifying conclusion to our 
joint enterprise am I going to place Sir John 
Toppys — for a brief interval before his execution 
— in the seat of Willatopy.” 

More than once during this horrible deliverance 
Roger Gatepath had essayed to stop her, but Ma- 
dame refused to be interrupted. It pleased her to 
describe vividly the last act in the lawless drama, 
and she indulged her whim. Madame loves talk 
gflmost as much as she loves action. But there is 
this difference. In action she is swift, precise, and 
shattiering. In speech she is diffuse and intermin- 
able. Yet there are many less agreeable occupa- 
tions than to sit opposite to that royal beauty and 
to listen respectfully to her babble. 

“You entirely misread our intentions,” said 
Gatepath severely, when Madame at last allowed 
him to get a word in. “ Do you suppose that Gate- 
paths, do you suppose that Sir John Toppys, Bar- 
onet of — er — ^Wigan, do you suppose that the 
Trustees of the settled estates of Topsham, would 
countenance the assassination of the lawful heir to 
an English peerage? ” 

“ I do,” said Madame cabnly. “ What is more, 
I am quite sure of it.” 

Gatepath collapsed. A great many people in 
their day have tried to humbug Madame Gilbert. 
All have failed and collapsed as did Roger Gate- 
path. 

Then in her masterful fashion, at the moment 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


when vague talk must cease or anticipate vigorous 
action, Madame took charge of the destinies of 
Toppys. 

You went out to the Torres Straits, Mr. Gate- 
path, and not to waste time over polite verbiage, 
you made an ass of yourself. You philandered with 
the pretty pale-skinned Widow Toppys. She re- 
sponded to your advances. It is of no use for you 
to shake your head. I know men, men of your sus- 
ceptible age, and I know widows. I am one my- 
self. Am I not always sweetly responsive to your 
fascinating middle-aged sex? You aroused the 
jealousy of Willatopy, and he, a wise and dutiful 
son — who also appears to understand widows — put 
you to rout with his spear. Never again dare 
you appear on the Island of Willatopy. Your head 
would infallibly decorate his baronial residence, 
and your body would be served up in ceremonious 
cutlets. If Willatopy is a Cannibal — which I take 
leave at present to doubt — he will devour his 
enemies as part of a religious ritual ; not for food. 
He would offer your head to his mistress as a gage 
d^amour, for no man is of any account in the South 
Seas as a lover until he has at least one bleeding 
head to show for his affection. The Island of Wil- 
latopy is closed to you ; no more will you exchange 
sweet nothings about the weather with the fair and 
frail Widow Toppys. But to me all is open. If 
you and your accomplice the Wigan Baronet are 
willing to pay my expenses on a scale adequate to 
a profiteer in war material, I will set sail for the 
island home of the Twenty-Eighth Baronet. If he 
is half white in sentiment, and not altogether a 
woolly savage, I will mould him with these subtle 


MADAME TAKES CHARGE 


33 


fingers. I will be bis shelter from hedge lawyers 
bent upon thrusting him untimely into the dreary 
old House of Lords. If, as may happen, the Heir 
of Topsham is definitely and finally impossible I 
will do my best to move him — ^willing or unwilling 
— ^to some retreat where he may be less easy of dis- 
covery by your rival practitioners than in his pres- 
ent conspicuous residence. I gather that the mis- 
sionary registers of Thursday Island blazon his ad- 
dress and telephone number. I will do nothing seri- 
ously unlawful, nothing, that is, which could be 
proved against me to my incarceration. A spice of 
adventurous illegality adds zest to an enterprise. 
But I won’t go to the scaffold or the prison for all 
the mouldy Toppyses who were ever hatched 
through the centuries. And though I accept noth- 
ing but limited liability, I will make a much more 
fruitful job of my island voyage than you did of 
yours. The widow will have no attractions for me, 
and if the Baron of Topsham and Madame Gilbert 
should become — epris — so much the easier will my 
task be made. Many men,” murmured Madame 
sadly, ^^have given me their honest (or dishonest) 
hearts, and most of them have paid heavily for my 
apparent acceptance of the gift. There, Mr. Gate- 
path, it is more than you or that bold bad Baronet 
of Wigan deserves; but I have made you a fair 
sporting offer. I will go to the Torres Straits, 
though how in the world I am to get a passage is 
for the moment beyond me. All steamers are 
packed ; those voyagers only who have urgent busi- 
ness have a chance of a berth; an unemployed 
widow bound upon a delicate, undescribable mis- 
sion would be a poor C 3 in the waiting list.” 


34 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


not let that worry you/^ cried Gatepath. 

I am beyond all things delighted by your offer. 
Sir John Toppys will be delighted. The Family of 
Toppys will be delighted. It is no small thing, 
Madame, to gain the regard and influence of the 
ancient and honourable House of Toppys. I accept 
your offer joyfully, and you need not calculate your 
expenses. The gold of Wigan will be poured into 
your lap. And as for the steamer passage, what 
care Gatepaths for passenger restrictions now that 
the Admiralty have released the Humming Topi 
She is refitting at this moment at Cowes. You shall 
sail at your ease in her.” 

“And what, please, is the Humming Top?’^ en- 
quired Madame patiently. 

“ She is a turbine-engined yacht, built by Dennys 
of Dumbarton, and a perfect seaboat. A thousand 
tons, Madame, Thames measurement, and fitted like 
a summer palace. Not too small for comfort, and 
not too big for the coral reefs of Torres. She is a 
sea home worthy even of Madame Gilbert.” 

“ That is the first really sensible speech that you 
have made to-day,” said Madame. 


CHAPTER III 


THE HUMMING TOP 

“T^HY Humming Top ? asked Madame Gilbert. 

It was early in March, and the devastation 
wrought by the Admiralty in the yacht’s graceful 
interior had been obliterated by the skilled hands 
of White of Cowes. Her upper and main decks had 
been entirely refashioned, and nothing remained 
of her armament except a brass signal gun forward. 
At the main mast head waved in the breeze the 
burgee of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, and from 
the inclined jackstaff at her stem hung the Blue 
Ensign which it is the privilege of that Club to 
wear. The Humming Top lay in the Test above 
Southampton just where the magazines of March- 
wood front the river. Madame Gilbert leaned upon 
the bridge rail, and beside her, as close beside her 
as Madame would permit, stood the Baronet of 
Wigan. 

Sir John Toppys had been presented to Madame 
some weeks earlier, and between them a friendship 
had ripened. In due course, when the Humming 
Top, completed and ready for sea, had been towed 
to her moorings off Marchwood, Sir John had 
pressed Madame to honour the vessel with her pres- 
ence. She, not unwilling to inspect the yacht in 
which she was to traverse the seas of the wide 
world, and not unwilling to double-lock her chains 
35 


36 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


upon the Baronet’s proffered neck, had consented 
to travel in his company to Southampton on the 
visit of introduction. Together they had examined 
the sleeping quarters on the main deck allotted to 
Madame and her maid, and the lady had gratified 
her host by suggesting some small alterations. 
Notebook in hand he hung upon her lips. 

My room is splendid,” said she, and I am so 
glad that you have given me a proper spring bed 
instead of a snuffy bunk. If you will have a light 
fitted at the head of my bed, and a bell push so that 
I can switch off the light or summon my maid with- 
out moving more than my hand, the room will be 
just perfect.” 

I will give orders at once,” declared Sir John 
Toppys. ‘^You are sure that there is no further 
way in which I may meet your wishes? ” 

None at present,” said Madame. “ If I think 
of anything else, I will let you know. She is a 
lovely boat, but why do you call her the Humming 
Top?’^ 

Sir John Toppys had not succumbed so far to 
the spells of Madame as to have wholly lost his 
earlier suspicion that the Toppys Family and for- 
tunes were in her eyes objects of derision. She was 
so frank in her laughter at their ancestral preten- 
sions, she proclaimed so openly that she embarked 
on her voyage to the South Seas as a glorious rag, 
that in time he had become disarmed. If she felt 
as she professed to feel, surely she would be less 
open in profession. Still now and then Madame 
would shoot out a question which did awaken in 
the baronet’s mind a feeling that his leg was about 
to be pulled. Before, therefore, answering her in- 


37 


THE “HUMMING TOP” 

quiry he reflected for a moment upon her possible 
motive. 

Even to him the explanation was rather absurd. 

The epithet ^ humming ’ suggests the whirr of the 
turbines,” muttered he. There is no hammer, 
hammer, hammer, clank, clank, clank, about this 
yacht. She whirrs, hums, just like a top.” 

Quite so,” assented Madame drily. “Never- 
theless, I do not think ” 

“ You are right,” put in Toppys hastily — ^it was 
better to be frank in confession. “We should not 
have chosen this name had we not desired it to sug- 
gest a Family Possession.” 

“ Toppys, pronounced Tops,” whispered Madame 
wickedly. “ Plural Tops, singular Top. Humming 
Top — the Top that Hums. What extraordinary 
worshippers of the Family gods you are. I fully 
expect to And that Willatopy is a faithful student 
of the Family Tree. He probably keeps it stuck up 
in his hut.” 

“ God forbid! ” cried the Baronet of Wigan. 

He was not a Bad Baronet, and certainly not 
Bold in the presence of Madame. She, expecting 
to meet the typical fat-bellied profiteer of the popu- 
lar cartoons, had at their first introduction been 
struck almost speechless with surprise. This the 
King of Coal and Iron, the Maker of Guns and 
Shells, the Wallower in unholy War Profits ! She 
saw before her a small thin gentleman, whose care- 
ful dress and trimmed white moustache suggested 
a military club. When he spoke, Winchester and 
Oxford spoke. This a Baronet of Wigan ! Madame 
rubbed her eyes. Further acquaintance revealed 
the explanation. John Toppys possessed the caste 


38 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


marks of his long line ; he had been educated as the 
Toppyses — though in extremest proverty — had al- 
ways been educated. He, almost alone in the rec- 
ords of his House, had taken to common business 
and shone in it. He was no higgler, he could not 
have run a draper’s shop, but when representing 
a big firm doing big things in a big way he found 
that doors would open to the pukka sahib John 
Toppys which would remain obstinately closed to 
plebeian rivals. John Toppys had built his for- 
tune on the secure basis of the essential snobbish- 
ness of the English people. To his firm he had been 
invaluable — ^for he knew how to use the entree 
which was his by right of blood — he had brought to 
them business of the best. And when later on he 
became the senior partner, and the chief partaker 
in the profits, the war cloud burst and wealth show- 
ered upon him. In his position it would have re- 
quired extraordinarily perverse skill not to have 
made money in car loads. Successive Governments 
did their utmost to stuff him, and his like, full of 
wealth. Thus, Sir John Toppys became a War 
Profiteer — almost against his own will — but though 
a Profiteer on a superlative scale, he remained a 
pukka sahib. Madame liked him. 

N 0 W that I have seen the Humming Top,^’ said 
Madame, I know that I am blessed among women. 
At no cost to myself — though at very much to you, 
Sir John Toppys-— I am going to have the time of 
my life. From May to September in the Torres 
Straits the climate is divine. A day temperature 
between 75 and 85, no rain, a perpetual trade wind 
from the cool south-east, nights in which one may 
sleep comfortably and days in which one may revel 


THE “HUMMING TOP” 


39 


in the tropical winter. It must be like Khartoum 
without the dust and with the sea thrown in. I 
shall swim in the sun and devour bananas in the 
shade. I shall hunt dugong and turtle, and fish in 
the tumbled waters of the Great Barrier. You will 
observe from my local colour that I have been study- 
ing the subject. I have. For me this preposterous 
enterprise will be full of joy; for you it will be full 
of expense and will end in exasperation. Why not 
back out while there is yet time? Surely you are 
not like that thick-headed Roger Gatepath. You do 
not suppose that anything, except a pleasant holi- 
day for Madame Gilbert, will spring from this 
cruise of mine? ” 

The expense to me is nothing,” said the Bar- 
onet. I am smothered in ill-gotten wealth. And 
if some of my money can give you pleasure, it is 
well spent, Madame. I would do more than write 
cheques to give you pleasure. And as for your en- 
terprise, is it destined to be empty of result? I 
think more highly of your resource than that. Daw- 
son says that there is nothing which you dare not 
do if your interest be stimulated.” He saw the 
angry flush spring out on Madame’s forehead. 

You mistake my meaning, Madame. It was not 
the stimulus of money that I had in mind. It was 
the overwhelming impulse of your artistic genius. 
When you confront a problem, however bleakly im- 
possible it may be, you never fail of solution. Daw- 
son says so. You have not concerned yourself with 
our family affairs because of any interest in our 
troubles. You laugh at them. It is because no man 
or woman alive, except Madame Gilbert, could re- 
solve a skein so hopelessly entangled. 


40 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


I see no solution, Sir J ohn. And though I sail 
at your expense, I am not on your side. I am free 
to help or to hinder, at my pleasure.^^ 

We are all at Madame Gilbert’s pleasure,” said 
Toppys, smiling. “We know, you and I, that Roger 
Gatepath is two parts flunkey, one quarter fool, and 
the other quarter unscrupulous lawyer. He cares 
for nothing except for the connections and profits 
of his firm. He would lick the new Lord Topsham’s 
tawny feet if he did not fear to lose some handfuls 
from my golden pile. I do not value the Barony at 
a rush for myself, but there is in my blood a cen- 
turies-old reverence for my Family. Rather than 
that coloured brat yonder should be recognised as 
the Head of my House, I would strangle him with 
my own hands. If you can save us from that hor- 
ror, Madame, there is nothing which is in my power 
to grant that I would not lay at your feet.” 

“ Absurd as it may seem. Sir John, I have a con- 
science. Madame Gilbert is not for sale.” 

“No. I should not value you if you were. And 
believe me I rate you very highly. You will go out 
in this yacht to the Torres Straits, and you will fol- 
low your conscience. Maybe you will bring back 
the Twenty-Eighth Baron in your train and set him 
yourself upon his seat. There is no contract be- 
tween us ; you are free to do even this. Be just to 
me, Madame. I have offered you nothing except 
a free passage; I have never sought to bribe you. 
In my heart I knew that it would be useless. What- 
ever may be the end, Madame, I shall always cherish 
these weeks of our friendship.” 

“ As a Toppys you are not a little ridiculous,” 


THE ‘‘HUMMING TOP” 


41 


said Madame. But as a man you are white all 
through.” 

She held out her hand to him there on the bridge 
of the Humming Top, and Toppys, stooping, kissed 
her fingers. “ Thank you,” said he, simply. 

Although Madame had made a sketchy inspec- 
tion of the yacht in the company of Sir John 
Toppys, she learned very little of its fascinating 
merits until she came aboard in act to sail. The 
crew were already at their quarters when Madame 
was ceremoniously received on board by Captain 
Ching the skipper, and the Chief Engineer, Ewing. 
She had already given orders — Sir John Toppys 
had assigned to her his full powers and prerogatives 
as owner — she had already given orders that the 
chief officers should mess with her in the pretty 
little saloon on the upper deck, aft of which was 
a snug Owner’s Room ” — equipped with writing- 
table and bookcases — ^which she reserved for her 
own private occupation. Whenever their duties 
permitted of social relaxation, Madame had deter- 
mined that the Captain and Chief Engineer should 
be her intimate companions. It was no new ex- 
perience for Madame to be the one woman in a com- 
pany of men — her maid did not count — and she 
who had the free outlook and high courage of a man, 
enjoyed the privileges of a double sex. In repose 
she was a woman; in action a man. 

Toppys had chosen his officers with judgment. 
The skipper, R.N.R., a man of Devon, sprang from 
the salt stock which had roamed uncharted seas 
with Drake and Cook. The Chief Engineer, a man 
of Glasgow, was of that hybrid race of deep water 
mechanicians which had come into existence with 


42 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Bell and Wood’s Comet, and for a hundred years 
had bent the powers of the land to the service of 
the sea. In the ancestry of sea craft engineers are 
of mushroom stock, and in comparison with the un- 
broken line of Plymouth Chings the Glasgow Ewing 
was little better than an upstart, an expert in tin- 
pot mysteries. Nevertheless the sailor Ching re- 
spected the engine-room accomplishments of Ewing, 
and Ewing, who could not have safely navigated a 
railway steamer from Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde 
Pier, freely acknowledged that in the above deck 
business Ching was his master. Each expert was 
supreme in his own department, and where in the 
world can one find better navigators than in Ply- 
mouth, or better marine engineers than in Glasgow 
City? 

They cast off in the late afternoon of March 15th, 
and in the evening were running out towards the 
Needles, the rapid whirr of the geared turbines 
scarcely conveying a dicker of vibration to the long 
slender hull. The yacht, on bridge and down in the 
engine-room, was in charge of the junior ranks, and 
both Ching and Ewing sat at dinner with Madame 
in the bright saloon. 

Hark to yon turbines,” said Ewing. Did ye 
ever hear the like? Just a wee whisper down be- 
low and a bit quiver along the decks. Yet they are 
pushing the boat along at eleven good knots.” 

Eleven point four,” corrected Ching. What 
could you hammer out, Ewing, in case of neces- 
sity? ” 

We never hammer,” replied the Chief with dig- 
nity. We just spin a wee bit faster when more 
boilers are fired and the steam pressure is raised. 


THE “HUMMING TOP 


43 


I could push her up to seventeen without a weep 
from the joints of the Babcock boilers. But it 
would be wicked war-r-k with fuel oil at 150 shill- 
ings the ton. At an easy eleven knots we are just 
burning money ; at a forced seventeen it would be a 
ghastly conflagration.^^ 

I don’t understand machinery,” said Madame, 
though I can run a flve-ton motor lorry with any 
man born. What is all this talk of oil? I thought 
that steam yachts burned coal and yet I haven’t 
seen a sign of coal dust in the vessel. My sitting- 
room and my cabin, like this saloon here, are 
warmed by electric radiators, and when I was down 
below, one might have eaten off the spickspan decks. 
Are we a motor yacht and no steamer at all? ” 

Coal,” said Ewing, belongs to the carbonifer- 
ous epoch. This is the Twentieth Century and the 
Age of Oil. The Humming Top is an oil-fired steam- 
ship and years before her time. Didn’t you know 
that she was built by Denny’s of Dumbarr-r-ton re- 
garr-r-dless of expense ? Her original triple-expan- 
sion reciprocating engines, driving twin screws, 
were put on the scrap heap in 1913, the year before 
the war, and high-speed turbines put in. Their in- 
credible speed of revolution is reduced down to the 
propeller shafts by helical spur gearing. There 
were vairy few destroyers in the King’s service in 
1913 which wouldn’t have squirmed with jealousy 
at the sight of our engine-room. At the same time, 
Madame, our ancient Scotch boilers with their coal 
fire-boxes were ripped out, and water-tube boilers, 
oil fired, installed in place of them. We don’t 
shovel heavy dirty coal, Madame; we simply squirt 
atomised oil upon the glowing fires. And when 


44 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


we want to replenish our bunkers we don’t run 
under the coal tips and smother our clean decks 
with filthy black dust; we just connect up with the 
tanks ashore, and press the switch of an electric 
pump. You could refill our bunkers yourself, Ma- 
dame, without soiling your dainty fingers. And 
with our geared turbines and our oil fuel we have a 
radius of action which is scarce believable.” 

“ This is most interesting,” said Madame. 

Though I don’t understand machinery, I love it 
tremendously. And I am nothing if not up-to-date.” 

You are up-to-date in the Humming Top; you 
couldn’t be up-to-dater in the Hood, We are a 
small craft, only a thousand tons yacht measure- 
ment, but at this moment we have 155 tons of oil 
in our side bunkers, and a resairve of 75 tons more 
in our double bottom in case of emairgency. At this 
easy toddle of eleven knots we can run seven thou- 
sand miles, more than half-way over the big bulge of 
the world, without replenishment. Which is an ad- 
vantage, Madame, that later on you will greatly ap- 
preciate. If we were coal fired we should need to go 
under those dirty wagon tips every two thousand 
miles or thereby. We can steam from here to 
Panama, or from Panama to Auckland without 
anxiety about our bunkers — always provided that 
Captain Ching doesn’t get impatient and doesn’t 
try to shove us along at more than eleven knots. If 
we steam fast there will be a terrible waste, and a 
great reduction in our radius.” 

“ I shan’t hurry,” said the Skipper, though Sir 
John told me to obey Madame’s orders about speed. 
If he don’t mind paying for forced draught, it is no 
business of mine to spare his pocket.” 


THE “HUMMING TOP 


45 


“ Sir J ohn may be rich as Pierpont Morgan,” 
declared the Scot. “ But I don’t waste good Asiatic 
oil for anybody’s wealth— not at 150 shillings the 

ton. Oil once burnt doesn’t grow again^ and pos- 
terity will starve for our lustful rapee^ty. The 
cost of this trip is just awful. And for pleasure, 

too. I am a judeecious, reflective man. Here we 
are in an empty ship idling across the world when 
we could have stuffed the yacht full of high-priced 
cargo at any damn freights we chose to extort. 
Ching, my commercial conscience racks me like a 
raging blister. A cabin load each of drugs or dye- 
stuffs would have made our fortunes in South 
America, yet here we are with half a dozen cabins 
empty. The wickedness of it scares me. The Hum- 
ming Top will come to no good when owners fly 
like yon in the face of the bountiful freights of a 
kindly Providence. If I may say so without ir- 
reverence, we are sacrileegiously biffing the Provi- 
dential eye.” 

Captain Ching laughed. He was willing to ven- 
ture freight on private account when granted an 
opportunity. But this was a private yachting 
cruise and orders were orders. If Sir John chose 
to burn money to please Madame Gilbert — ^for that 
is how the long sea trip presented itself to his mind 
— well, he had plenty to burn, and Madame was well 
worth pleasing. He, as skipper, was handsomely 
paid for his job, and that was enough for him. So 
was Ewing very well paid. But the lost opportuni- 
ties of plundering South American Dagoes which 
slid unregarded past the easy-going Devonian just 
exasperated the Scot from Glasgow. 

‘^Please explain,” put in Madame. ^‘How can 


46 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


we gratify the bountiful Providence who is dis^ 
pleased with the Humming Top? I am always care- 
ful, when I can, to range Providence on my side.” 

The Engineer explained. He pointed out that 
here was a yacht with half her cabins empty and 
stowage spaces unoccupied beneath their very feet. 
Here also was a world bereft of shipping and every 
scrap of space afloat worth almost as much as 
habitable houses ashore. It would do no one any 
harm, least of all Sir John Toppys, the Owner, if 
by judicious private trading Ching and Ewing 
could accumulate a pile of wealth. “ Of course Sir 
John would get his share — and you too, Madame,” 
explained Ewing, anxiously. 

Please leave me out,” cried Madame, greatly to 
the relief of Ewing, to whom an Owner’s idle share 
gave pain sufficient, I stand in with Sir John. Is 
there any real reason, Captain Ching, why Mr. 
Ewing should not do what he proposes? Would 
Sir John object? ” It had occurred to Madame that 
the Humming Top as a trader would be accepted in 
the South Seas without comment, whereas a private 
yacht, cruising at large upon an unexplained pur- 
pose, might excite curiosity the most unwelcome. 

Not at all, I think,” said Ching. My orders 
are to take you to the Torres Straits and to place 
myself and the yacht unreservedly at your disposal. 
Sir John was most positive. I have among the 
ship’s papers written instructions directing me to 
obey any orders from you which are consistent with 
the laws of British shipping. Sir John has very 
complete confidence in your judgment, Madame.” 

“ The more reason why I should not strain my 
temporary authority,” said Madame. Still in this 


THE “HUMMING TOP” 


47 


matter of private trading I do not hold that Sir 
John could reasonably take objection. We do no 
injury to him nor to the yacht, and you, his officers, 
will perhaps benefit. You have my permission to 
go ahead.” 

Madame Gilbert,” said Ewing solemnly, you 
are the maist sensible wumman it has ever been my 
fortune to encounter. Not excepting Mrs. Ewing. 
I may add,” he went on with enthusiasm, “that 
if I were not a man happily married to a gude Scots 
leddy I would throw my hairt into your bonnie 
lap.” 

“ This is very sudden,” said Madame. For all 
you know I may be married myself.” 

“No matter,” cried the Engineer. “If you, a 
foreign leddy, are so ripe with sense now what 
would you become with a gude Scotsman beside ye? 
You and I together would scrape the jewels off the 
airth. Meantime, with your permission, we will get 
busy. I take it that the yacht will call at Plymouth 
and maybe stay two three days whiles I communi- 
cate with my friends in Glasgow.” 

“ If you are going to load the Humming Top with 
valuable stores, Mr. Ewing, you will need a lot of 
ready money.” 

Ewing grinned. “We Scots folk are cautious, 
vairy cautious. Especially when we deal with one 
another.” 

“ Perhaps you need the more caution then,” sug- 
gested Madame, smiling. 

“ Maybe aye, maybe no. We don’t push in our 
fingers farther than we can draw the hand back. 
But in these days it is scarcely possible to make a 
mistake. If we load up with opium, cocaine, and 


48 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


other immoral dopes for the Dagoes we can’t go 
wrong. They will pay any money, and my friends 
in Glasgow will do the needful on credit. They 
will ask a percentage, I don’t deny that, but there 
will be a margin. Ching, my son, are you game for 
dope smuggling round Valparaiso and Lima way? ” 
We must have creditable stores for the mani- 
fest,” said Ching, but I don’t suppose the Dago 
Customs will peer closely at a private yacht. And 
a few honest dollars will blind their eyes I reckon. 
The Law is not obtrusive on the West Coast, Ewing. 
But go easy with contraband. We mustn’t get Ma- 
dame here into trouble.” 

‘‘Don’t worry about me,” said Madame cheer- 
fully. “ I already feel like a buccaneer. A bit of 
smuggling will give zest to a voyage which threatens 
to be tedious. So let us stop in Plymouth for so 
long as Mr. Ewing requires for his nefarious opera- 
tions.” 

“ I never thought to see the day,” declared Ewing, 
beaming upon her, “ when my gude wife in Paisley 
would seem to be a sore encumbrance. And after 
Plymouth could we not touch at Bordeaux? French 
wines are always good mairchandise on the West 
Coast, and the profits thereof would seduce old 
Pussyfoot himself.” 

“ I clearly see,” said Madame, smiling, “ that 
when the Humming Top leaves Europe for her long 
trail to the Panama Canal she will be laden to her 
utmost capacity. We shall burn a power of oil to 
knock out even eleven knots then.” 

“ It will be worth it,” cried Ewing, smacking his 
lips. “ Even with fuel oil at one hundred and fifty 
shillings the ton, there will still be a margin. If we 


THE “HUMMING TOP” 


are loaded rail under with profitable stores I won’t 
grudge a cask or two of Sir John Toppys’ oil. We 
play fair, Madame. The Owner gets his share, a 
full honest share.” 

“ For rank buccaneers and smugglers,” observed 
Madame contemplatively, we seem to be indiffer- 
ently honest. Go ahead, my good but disreputable 
friends. And if you should require any cash I am 
in this thing with you up to my fair neck.” 

“ Madame,” declared Ewing gloomily, you make 
the recollection of my gude wife fair burdensome 
to me, fair burdensome. We should ha’ made a 
bonny pair of pirates, you and I.” 


CHAPTER IV 


IN THE SOUTH SEAS 

TP I had not set myself down to write the story of 

Madame Gilbert in relation to His Lordship the 
Cannibal I should entertain my readers with full 
details of the Humming Top’s illicit enterprises. 
Abetted by Captain Ching and Madame Gilbert, 
the capable Scot, Ewing, let himself go. “ It should 
never be said of me,” he remarked, that I encour- 
aged the vices of the Dagoes by making them inex- 
pensive. They shall find their sins a most costly 
luxury. In the eyes of the judeecious my operations 
convey a strictly moral lesson.” To dopes and 
drinks he added chemicals and dyes of high com- 
mercial importance. In brand they are Swiss, but 
in parentage suspiciously German ; the Dagoes will 
pay the more for them on that account.” 

The stowage capacity of the Humming Top filled 
him with admiration. 

‘‘The design of this boat,” pronounced Ewing, 
“ is vairy creditable to my friend Ar-r-chie Denny 
of Dumbarton. He was not at the time she was 
constructed the Baronet that he grew into; just 
plain Ar-r-chie. He is a vairy far-sighted man, is 
Ar-r-chie Denny. When he designed that snug wee 
hold below the main deck, so modest, so unobtru- 
sive, so shrinking from observation, yet so bounti- 
ful in capacity, he must have foreseen that his yacht 
60 


IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


51 


would find its way into gude judeecious Scots 
hands. He is a vairy releegious man, is Ar-r-chie 
Denny. I shall chairge the idolatrous Papists a 
price for the dopes and dyes which will gratify his 
Presbyterian conscience. The Scots, you will ob- 
serve, Madame, are a grand God-fearing people.’^ 

“ I am a Papist,” whispered Madame. It was 
not my fault, and I am not a very good one.” 

The better for that ; the better for that,” said 
Ewing, encouragingly. “You need only a gude 
Scots Presbyterian husband and you would become 
a pairfect wumman.” 

Ching entered with zeal into the lawless projects 
of the Scots Engineer. His ancestors — and mine 
— had played the merry three-legged game a few 
hundred years earlier, and, like all of true Devon 
stock, he was unchangeable in temper. He was a 
smuggler by inheritance. Out of Plymouth to the 
Slave Coast with beads and trumpery — the first leg. 
From the Coast to the West Indies with a cargo of 
blackbirds — the second leg. From the West Indies 
to Plymouth with rum and molasses — the third leg. 
That was the merry three-legged game with hun- 
dreds per cent, profit at the end of each leg. And 
in those righteous days no excess profits duty. We 
of Devon played it, and the Pilgrim Fathers of 
Khode Island played it — ^with geographical modi- 
fications — and we remained citizens of the highest 
repute. John Hawkins, who began it, becttme a 
Knight by the hand of Queen Elizabeth, and Treas- 
urer of the Royal Navy of England. We have 
fallen upon soft times, but even now the Devon' 
folk — ^and Scots like friend Ewing — revert to an- 
cestral types and practices. “A far-sighted man 


52 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

is Ar-r-cMe Denny,” murmured Ewing again, as he 
stuffed packages into the snug wee hold between 
the main deck and the ballast tanks. He would 
just love to be here to see how we appreciate his 
cunning war-r-k.” 

' Ewing speedily found that Plymouth was an un- 
sympathetic base for his illicit operations. In 
the old days Cawsand at the western entrance of 
the Sound had been a famous smuggling centre, but 
its glory had departed. Plymouth itself was hedged 
about with unromantic restrictions. Ewing’s Glas- 
gow accomplices could pass down dyestuffs and 
chemicals in gratifying quantity, but dopes, the 
glowing fount of profits, declined to flow. 

The English,” wailed Ewing, “ give no encour- 
agement to honest Scottish enterprises. Their 
jealousy is just parochial. There was a time when 
one could ship any damn thing out of Glasgow, 
but there is too much of the Royal British fossilised 
old Navy about Plymouth. Those Keyham black- 
smiths did their wor-r-st to strip my turbines with 
their monkey tricks when the Bumming Top was 
requisitioned, and the port authorities are every bit 
as feckless as the Navy, all forms and Customs 
regulations. Give me immoral belle France and 
worthy dishonest Spain.” 

He did better at Bordeaux, and best of all at 
Lisbon, to which easy-going jumping-off place his 
Glasgow friends ordered Switzerland to consign the 
soul-raising dopes which England had barred as 
immoral. There are few scruples about Switzer- 
land and fewer still about Portugal. 

^‘We Scots are proud of our national institu- 
tions,” remarked Ewing, when Lisbon unfolded to 


IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


53 


Mm its charms as an abetter of crime, until we 
come to experience their rotten foolishness. We 
are too intolerant and logical; give me the broad- 
minded and wholly unscrupulous Dagoes for busi- 
ness partners. We lack sympathy with human 
weakness, but the Dagoes coin dollars out of it all 
the time. If I were a wee bit younger I would turn 
Dago myself.” 

When at last the Humming Top cast off at Lisbon 
and stretched away at her leisurely eleven knots 
for Colon and the South Seas she was stuffed with 
stores of “ prodeegious richness,” all insured. 

But go careful, Ching, if you love me,” implored 
Ewing. I have covered the lot on board of us at 
Lloyd’s, but a claim won’t bear looking into. If 
we do get wrecked this side of Valparaiso, it has got 
to be a thorough casualty. A total loss. A sunk 
ship tells no tales.” 

^^We are not going to be lost,” promised the 
Skipper. 

“ Speak softly, man,” whispered Ewing. Speak 
soft. Kub wood. Ye carry Caesar and his fortunes. 
There is sair peril in boastfulness at sea.” 

To Madame the flagrant abuse of Sir John 
Toppys’ marine hospitality was a rich jest, packed 
with many a subtle stimulus to laughter. One re- 
morseless Fate — ^in the person of the late Hon. 
William Toppys — ^had given a coloured Head to an 
ultra-respectable and unimaginative English 
Family. A second Fate — ^in the person of naughty 
Madame Gilbert — had corrupted the virtue of the 
Family Yacht, and set her rollicking across the 
seas as a flagrantly unchaste smuggler. The pri- 
vate list of her soul-raising ” stores, designed to 


54 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


pander to the degenerate tastes of South American 
Dagoes, almost staggered Madame herself, and she 
turned for the solace of her seasoned conscience to 
the blameless manifest craftily prepared by Captain 
Ching for the edification of the Panama Canal 
Board. 

You are sure there will be no examination? ’’ 
she asked the Skipper. 

^ Sure,” he said confidently. We are landing 
nothing in the Canal Zone, and the Board doesn't 
care two pins what we carry through.” 

“ If that is so,” murmured Madame ; if we get 
through without scandal, I will tell Sir John 
Toppys all about it. He is a white man. Captain 
Ching, who trusted me. One owes something,” 
added Madame virtuously, to a white man who 
really trusts one.” 

Confession after crime was to Madame — and I 
am afraid also to the ‘‘grandly releegious ” Ewing 
— greatly to be preferred to weak repentance be- 
fore hand. 

“ It is the golden rule of life,” said Ewing, “ not 
to repent too soon. There is a time and season for 
all things.” 

That very up-to-date yacht the Humming Top 
carried a wireless plant and a Marconi operator. 
Aerials hung between the slim masts, and their 
range of contact with the outside world extended 
for five hundred miles— by day. By night it was 
much wider. The operator, as they hummed along, 
picked up the news of the day for Madame’s edifica- 
tion ; it cannot be said that he was overworked. 

I think Madame’s state room — ^it really was 
worthy of that abused epithet — must have been de- 


IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


55 


signed for the use of Sir John Toppys and his de- 
parted lady, in the days when space at sea was a 
new luxury. With its appurtenances — a dressing- 
room at one end and a bathroom at the other — it 
was thirty feet long, and it contained, as has been 
said, a spring bedstead hung hammock-wise. The 
bed gave discreetly to the roll of the ship. In the 
dressing-room which had a door of direct commu- 
nication, was installed Madame’s maid, a French 
girl who detested the sea and did not conceal her 
hatred. She became reconciled to the months of 
sea travel by the gratifying circumstance that she 
and Madame were two lone women in a man-in- 
fested ship. Marie could do with a large surplusage 
of Man. 

The saloon on the upper deck was the Mess of 
Madame and the chief officers; to the two junior 
deck officers and the two assistant Engineers was 
assigned the Mess Room aft on the main deck out of 
which their cabins opened, and to them, at their own 
request, was added the society at meals of Marie. 

How many? ’’ enquired Madame, when Ching 
diffidently communicated the invitation. Four of 
them? Marie could keep a dozen busy. She will 
make four hop pretty briskly.” In spite of bouts of 
sea-sickness I fancy that Marie enjoyed her voyage. 

Between Madame Gilbert and her companions 
grew up a close friendship. She talked freely with 
them except upon the purpose of her travels. That 
was maintained for the present as a Family Secret. 
They, simple creatures, sometimes wondered why 
Sir John Toppys should spend so much money upon 
Madame’s pleasures and refrain from sharing them 
yiith her. His absence was grateful in their sight — 


56 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


for did they not between them monopolise a most 
gracious and entertaining lady? — ^but they often 
wondered at his lack of enterprise. 

‘^Ching,” said Ewing confidentially, ^^you are 
married as tightly as I am, and both of us are faith- 
ful — in reason — ^to our wedded wives. But if you 
had the chance of an unlawful holiday cruise with 
our beautiful Madame Gilbert, would you not jump 
at it? ” 

Ewing,” said Ching, as confidentially, I am a 
sinful man. I should.” 

Sir John Toppys must be a meeracle,” declared 
Ewing, after a long pause. 

‘^Perhaps it is Madame who is the miracle,” 
observed the Skipper shrewdly. 

; The ripe flavour of Ewing’s Scottish character 
was not appreciated by Madame Gilbert until a con- 
versation took place off Valparaiso, for the contra- 
band cargo had all been disposed of — at cash prices 
— and Ching and Ewing were counting up their 
gains in Madame’s presence. Half the profits were 
set aside for the Owner of the Humming Top, and 
were safely locked up with the ship’s gold in the 
Captain’s safe. 

It’s an awful sum of money to pay over to the 
idle rich,” wailed Ewing. 

The “ Idle Rich,” as Madame and Ching pointed 
out, had not only provided the vessel for their illicit 
trading operations, but had also paid handsome 
wages to the crew — including their noble selves. 
Incidentally his idle wealth purchased the tons of 
oil fuel — at steadily advancing prices — ^which they 
drew aboard at Colon and purposed to take in at 
Auckland. The Idle Rich ” supplied the Capital 


IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


57 


and working expenses ; Ching, Madame, and Ewing 
the nnscrupulous Labour. Madame, it may be ob- 
served, received nothing: Ewing and Ching drew 
fifty per cent, between them. 

“ Was not that fair? ” enquired Madame. 

“ As a matter of metapheesical exactitude,” re- 
plied Ewing cautiously, I would not deny that the 
Owner’s half-profit is defensible. From the point 
of view, mar-r-k my wor-r-ds, of the Idle Capeetalist. 
But the Spirit of the Age, Madame, is not con- 
cairned solely with — with the boodle. The news 
which flickers in over our most efficient wireless 
apparatus indicates that the Wor-rkers of the 
Wor-r-ld are all on the Grab. I am a wor-r-ker, 
Ching is a wor-r-ker, you, Madame, are a wor-r-ker. 
Sir John Toppys is not a wor-r-ker. I don’t sup- 
pose that the little man has ever sweated in his 
life — except maybe at the gowf. To the wor-r-kers 
belong the profits. That means Ching and me.” 

But I am also a wor-r-ker,” put in Madame 

slyly. 

Ewing shuffled uneasily. I have said so, and I 
bide by what I have said. But you have waived 
your rights, Madame. Ching will bear witness.” 

Madame laughed. Then an idea struck her, and 
she gleefully cast it in Ewing’s voracious teeth. 

I have waived my rights. But your officers and 
men have not waived theirs. They are wor-r-kers. 
They have navigated the ship which has sailed the 
seas and carried the goods which Ewing and Ching 
and Madame — and those friends of yours in Glas- 
gow— have bought and sold. By comparison with 
the junior officers and the humble men, you and I 
are little better than idle rich ourselves. ,We just 


58 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


give the orders; they do the hard uninteresting 
wor-r-k. We loll smoking here while they sweat. 
Surely they should have their share of the boodle.” 

Horror competed with exasperation on the harsh 
red face of the Chief Engineer. With difficulty he 
awaited the end of her speech and then burst out: 

Is it possible, Madame Gilbert, that you are a 
Socialist? I could not have believed it of you if I 
had not hair-r-d your terrible wur-r-ds with my own 
ears.” 

I am more than a Socialist,” said Madame 
proudly. am a Bolshevist where the humble 
poor are concerned.” 

Ewing shuddered. I could not have believed it. 
It is just peetiful trash that you speak. And you in 
other respects a maist sensible wumman. What is 
ceevilisation? ” Ewing flung out this large inquiry, 
and an answer not being offered, proceeded to 
supply one himself. Ceevilisation is brains, Ma- 
dame. Capital is not brains; it is gilded idleness 
levying toll on the honest wor-r-ker. Toilsome 
sweat is not brains ; it just stupidly does what it is 
told by superior intelligences. Sir John Toppys is 
not ceevilisation. The men who obey our or-r-ders 
above deck and in the engine-room are not ceevilisa- 
tion. WE are ceevilisation. Ching and I — and 
you, Madame, who have waived your claim to a 
share. And quite right, too. In strict economic 
justice, I, Alexander Ewing, should draw a lairger 
dividend from the boodle than Rober-r-t Ching. And 
for why? Because I have the mair brains. The 
oreeginal idea of this smuggling plant was mine. 
But I say nothing about that,” he added generously. 

Share and share alike. But if,” he went on with 


IN THE SOUTH SEAS 


59 


vicious emphasis, any of my engine-room hands, 
or my Engineers, peer their noses into my private 
enterprises I will sor-r-t their fat car-r-cases with 
a coal shovel. Ceevilisation is brains, Madame. 
Don’t for peety’s sake tell yon fearsome Socialism 
to me any more. I just canna bear it.” 

The plunder was all in fat United States dollars, 
a noble currency which towers like a mountain peak 
amidst the wreckage of European depreciated 
paper. Ewing saw to that. He dribbled out his 
highly demanded stores in quantities that rather 
added to than diminished the exuberant buoyancy 
of the market. He was a Scotsman who had made 
a Corner, next perhaps to a Scotsman on the Make 
the most noble Wor-r-k of God. Dagoes of varied 
hues, and of more than doubtful parentage, came 
and went; they were closeted with Ewing in the 
saloon, and departed stripped. They got their dyes 
and their chemicals and their naughty dopes, but 
what a hair-raising price they were compelled to 
pay! 

I am no profiteer,” declared Ewing. Just a 
plain, honest Scottish mairchant. I chairge no 
mair than the mar-r-ket will bear. And I have a 
suspeecion that there will be no excess profits duty 
paid on this deal. We are private persons engaged 
in honourable professions, not traders or registered 
partners. Besides we are out of the jurisdiction of 
the wucked English income tax. We are patriots, 
too, employed upon the noble wor-r-k of reconstruct- 
ing the trade of the British Empire.” 

When one combines lofty patriotism with some 
five hundred per cent, profit, the result cannot fail 
to be profoundly gratifying. 


CHAPTER V 


willatopy: pilot 

^HEY drew away from the South American 
Coast and headed for New Zealand and the 
Coral Sea beyond. And as Robert Ching pored 
over the chart of the Coral Sea it was borne in 
upon him that the navigation of those many spiked 
waters Avould, in the absence of a pilot, be as big 
a job as he wanted. The Humming Top drew no 
more than ten and a half feet of water, and was 
specially guarded under her keel by six inches of 
solid teak — Ching had demanded the false, protec- 
tive keel before he would consent to take the yacht 
to the Torres Straits — but she was big enough to 
tear herself to pieces on those frightful coral teeth 
if permitted to swerve only by a little from the 
tortuous channels. 

I shall have to do without a pilot most of the 
time,” said he. There is a large regular trade 
and not enough pilots to supply wandering yachts. 
We must go back to the methods of Drake and Cook 
— keep the lead going by day and lie up at night. 
A sailor can smell his way along anywhere if he is 
not pressed for time,” 

Madame promised him all the time that there 
was — she was enjoying herself and in no hurry to 
get at grips with the problem of the Twenty-Eighth 
Baron of Topsham. Every week which passed at 
60 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 


61 


sea made the purpose of her voyage seem more 
bizarre and incredible. Yet she was constantly re- 
minded of its reality. Though they knew it not, 
here were Ching and Ewing, together with some 
two dozen officers and men, at a cost which ran 
into hundreds of pounds a week, steaming to the 
ends of the earth solely for that bizarre and in- 
credible purpose. Madame had made her own posi- 
tion luminously clear. She was going with no plan 
and under no promise. She was not going to 
smother Willatopy or tip him into the sea — which 
would have been of little use since he swam like a 
dolphin. She was not going to poison his food or 
even to kidnap him. She was simply going to see 
what this half-caste Baron looked like and to order 
her movements in accordance with her impressions. 
She talked with Ching and Ewing upon every sub- 
ject in earth or heaven except this one. The Family 
Secret must remain secret until the day arrived 
when secrecy should avail nothing. When that day 
would dawn Madame had no idea. To anyone ex- 
cept Sir John.Toppys — and curiously enough Koger 
Gatepath — the whole expedition would have seemed 
a ridiculous waste of money. But both of them 
were at their wits’ end, and both of them had a 
childlike faith in Madame Gilbert’s lively intelli- 
gence and resource. Something striking would re- 
sult from the voyage, of that they felt convinced; 
though what it would be they had no conception. 
Neither had Madame. Yet she went. The Family 
Misfortune intrigued her, and she wanted to see it 
at close quarters, and to make it crawl to her feet 
and eat out of her hand. 

When at last they warped up at Auckland Ewing 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


himself sounded the fuel tanks in the Humming 
Top’s double bottom. He had sworn by his holy 
gods — ^the twin high-speed Parson-cum-Denny 
geared turbines — that the yacht would run from 
Panama to Auckland, via Lima and Valparaiso, on 
the 230 tons of fuel oil which she bore away from 
the Canal Zone. She had done it, and the Chief 
was curious to see by what small margin his judg- 
ment as Engineer had been saved from derision. 
The margin was just nine tons, say 270 miles of 
steaming at eleven knots. 

Thirty miles to the ton or thereby,” murmured 
he, “ and very good wor-r-k too. Yon’s a useful 
figure to bear in one’s heid.” 

At Auckland he filled up chock a block, side 
bunkers and ballast tanks, and felt confident that 
he could go up to Thursday Island, toddle about at 
low speed in the Straits so long as it pleased Ma- 
dame to toddle, and then make his way back to the 
Auckland tanks while, so to speak, some shots re- 
mained unburnt in his locker. But the price of 
oil at the Antipodes struck horror to his thrifty 
heart. Suppose — it was an awful suppose — Sir 
John Toppys, obdurate to the wheedlings of Ma- 
dame, who had promised to do her utmost to make 
the owner waive his share, should insist on debit- 
ing the cost of the voyage to that “ owner’s share ” 
of the illicit profits. It was a dreadful supposition. 
Ewing thrust it from his consciousness; even the 
Idle Rich could not be so utterly soulless. 

At Auckland in addition to the stores of oil fuel 
they shipped trading goods for the Islands, and 
stowed them carefully away in the empty cabins 
and in the snug wee hold which had already served 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 


63 


the adventurers so well. These saleable commo- 
dities were designed to give to the wandering yacht 
a commercial status, and might possibly, almost 
certainly, add some few dollars of profit to their 
bursting treasury. 

“ One can never make too much profit,” explained 
Ewing,” especially when one doesn’t pay any excess 
taxes to an extortionate English Government. 
Cash, in American dollars, tells no tales.” 

Ewing had already decided that the Humming 
Top should look in at an American port on the way 
home, and that the boodle should be deposited out 
of harm’s way under the protection of the Stars 
and Stripes. A dread lest the tax gatherers of Eng- 
land might yet grab some of it possessed him. In 
his management of the Auckland stores his genius 
for finance rose to lofty heights. 

‘‘We will invest the alleged share of Sir John 
Toppys in this Island trade,” declared he. “ If we 
make a loss — and it is not a business which I vairy 
clearly comprehend — then the loss will fall upon the 
Owner of the yacht. Which is just. Idle and rich 
owners must take some risk ; that is what they are 
for. If we realise a profit — and my friends here 
say that the Islands are stripped and will buy any- 
thing ravenously — if we realise a profit, of course 
it belongs to us who have aimed it. To me and 
Ching,” he added hastily, lest Madame should in- 
trude with a claim. “ Sir John’s share will be put 
back, untouched; we are honest men.” 

When Madame hinted that righteous dealing had 
not quite been given a full rein, Ewing protested 
sorrowfully that as an operation of business what 


64 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


he proposed was spotless, white as driven snow on 
the bonny hills of Scotland. 

Sir John is a capeetalist,” said he. He would 
not wish his funds to lie idle in yon safe. He would 
wish that they should be employed in the recon- 
struction of the British Empire. That’s what we 
are going to do with them. Would you leave his 
money fruitless just because we are twelve thou- 
sand miles away and cannot ask his permission to 
employ it? Would you be baffled by a formality like 
yon? Capeetalists always love to tur-r-n their 
money over. We will tur-r-n Sir John’s over for 
him. We will make it skip. It’s going to belong 
to us anyway — ^you have promised to see to that, 
Madame — although for the moment we are holding 
it for him. Do you not reflect also, Madame, that 
a whole five per cent, of Sir John’s share is going 
to the officers and crew and I have got to make good 
the grievous loss which your Socialism has brought 
upon me. I have to carry that feckless Ching on 
my back too. He would give the lot away like a 
pound of mouldy tea if I were not at his elbow to 
keep him heedful of the future. I am not what 
you could exactly call a man of business, but I 
have grasped the inherent principles of the job.” 

“ You grasp the principles — and most other 
things,” said Madame, smiling. Her joy in Ewing 
never failed, and between the pair had grown up 
a very close affection. She liked the simple, kindly, 
unselfish Ching, but as a study in humanity he 
could not compete in interest with the great Alex- 
ander. 

Ching made no mystery of the sea craft in which 
he was a master. He took Madame and Ewing 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 


65 


wholly into his confidence, and earned their full 
confidence in return. The yacht was about to sail 
in waters where destruction awaited eagerly any 
slip by a careless navigator, and Ching was not tak- 
ing any risks which could be avoided. 

I am not going to see more of the coral reefs 
than I’m obliged,” said he, during the first dinner 
out of Auckland. “We shall get our bellyful of 
them in the Straits, especially if Madame here has 
a fancy for uncharted channels. I am taking the 
Humming Top by the outer passage, as far east of 
the Great Barrier as I can get, and then come down 
to Thursday Island by the Bligh Entrance. You’ve 
heard of Bounty Bligh, Madame ; he was a master- 
ful man, and always stirred up a mutiny wherever 
he commanded. There is a well-known inner passage 
between the Barrier and the Queensland Coast; 
it is sheltered and lighted like the Strand, but as 
it isn’t much wider I’m not taking any of it. I 
couldn’t look at the passage without a pilot, and 
there might not be one to the Humming Top, She’s 
a vagrant yacht, not a real ship.” 

“ She is an Island trader,” corrected Ewing with 
dignity. 

“ Humph,” replied Ching. “ A ton or two of frip- 
pery doesn’t turn a yacht into a ship. We are a 
rich man’s toy, and don’t count for much on the 
high seas. Our burgee and Blue Ensign look conse- 
quential at Auckland, but an ancient Island 
schooner would make more stir in the Straits.” 

“ Wait till they see our engine-room,” cried 
Ewing. “ There’s nothing like it outside the King’s 
Navy.” 

“ Humph,” replied Ching again. “ They wouldn’t 


66 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


look at our engine-room if there was a dirty craft 
alongside which would load up their copra and 
heche de mer. Trade must run both ways to be 
taken seriously. I take it that we are not going to 
carry copra to the English soap boilers or smoked 
sea slugs for the Chinese soup market. And if we 
don’t do both the Island trade has no use for us 
and no interest in us.” 

You make us feel humble,” said Madame, smil- 
ing. I had become proud of the Humming Top/^ 

She’s a fine craft, but a yacht isn’t a real ship, 
Madame.” 

“ She was a real enough ship when you and I ran 
her in at seventeen knots under the guns at Zee- 
brugge to pick up the Navy boys in the watter,” 
shouted Ewing. 

^^That was another Service,” returned Ching 
stolidly. She was a ship then. Now she’s a yacht. 
I’m proud to command her now, as I was then; 
but I want to make you see that as a yacht she has 
no status on the seas. If pilots are scarce we shall 
have no call on one. We’ve got to run our own risks 
by ourselves and to make them as small as we know 
how. Is that clear? ” 

As crystal,” said Madame. Also humiliating. 
And I thought I was rather a swell cruising about 
the world in a yacht which was practically my 
own.” 

You always would be a swell anywhere,” said 
Ching politely. “ But on the high seas the mistress 
of a yacht doesn’t count for a row of beans.” 

Don’t heed him, Madame,” cried Ewing. He’s 
only a demobbed Commander R.N.R. Your friend 
Alexander Ewing will stick up for you. I was an 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 


67 


Engineer Lieutenant, and the engine-room ranks 
much higher than the bridge nowadays, though it 
may not sport so many rows of gold lace. It is my 
deliberate opeenion, arrived at by careful considera- 
tion of all the circumstances, and after giving full 
weight to the observations of my commanding ofifi- 
cer, that we shall get on quite nicely without a 
pilot, thank you* I am not exactly what you could 
call an experienced navigator, but give me a well- 
found vessel of light draught, with six inches of 
teak fender to her hinder end, a diligent crew heav- 
ing the lead at discreet intervals, all the eyes on the 
bridge looldng sprightly for promiscuous breakers, 
and I would con the Humming Top myself. The 
mair especially if I could be in two places at once 
and be in chairge of my bonny engines at the same 
time as I strolled majestically about the bridge. 
There is no real deeficulty about navigation, Ma- 
dame. Yon’s not like to the management of high- 
speed geared turbines. Yon’s child’s wor-r-k with 
Admiralty charts spread about ye. But since I 
cannot be, like the fabulous bir-r-d, in the two places 
at once, I will leave the bridge to our deefident 
friend Ching. Go ahead, dead slow, among the 
prickly reefs, and if you should just butt on the 
ground give the wor-r-d to me by the engine-room 
telegraph and I will whip her off on the revairse. 
That is the grand advantage of geared turbines, 
Madame. One has the full power on the revairse. 
What did you go for to put teak to the bottom of us, 
Ching, if you didna expect to find a use for it? ” 

“ It was a precaution,” said the Skipper, like 
a fender. One doesn’t bang the sides of a ship 
against a stone wharf because one has fenders. I 


68 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


have seen a fender break tbrongh the plates before 
now when used without judgment.” 

“You are a careful man, and we trust you, 
Ching,” said Ewing encouragingly. “ Go ahead, 
pilot or no pilot. And if you should get into trouble 
deeper than your brains can penetrate, there is 
always the voice pipe handy. Take counsel of Alex- 
ander Ewing. He will stand by ye.” 

“ I will,” returned the Skipper, “ I will ask you 
how to run my ship when you ask me how to 
manage your engine-room.” 

“Alexander,” said Madame severely, when the 
Captain had left the saloon for his own duties, “if 
Captain Ching were not a sweet-blooded angel he 
would kick you hard. I should. Don^t you see, 
you thick-headed Scotch mechanic, that the Captain 
is worried, and when a sailor like that is worried, 
the danger must be considerable. I am ashamed of 
you, Alexander.” 

“ It was just pairsiflage, Madame,” said Ewing. 
“ A wee bit of vairy humorous pairsiflage. I know 
my place. Though I have mair gude Scots brains in 
my Anger than all the soft West Country porridge 
stuff in Ching’s head, I would never interfere with 
the bridge. A Chief Engineer is a man of science, 
not a rule of thumb navigator.” 

“ You had better not,” quoth Madame. “ Ching 
is slow and quiet. He has no small talk, and, it 
must be confessed, is sometimes a bit heavy on 
hand. He is not a lively companion like our Alex- 
ander. But in a misspent life I have learned some- 
thing of men, and I bank on Ching. Mar-r-k my 
wor-r-ds, Sandy. He will bring us through the reefs 
without scraping our false keel, and if you chafO 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 


69 


him at a moment when he is really anxious he will 
chuck you into the Ditch. The Scotch are a great 
people, but they are not conspicuous for tact.” 

It was well into May when, far up in the Gulf of 
Papua, Ching swung the Humming Top to the west- 
ward, and began the hazardous unaided penetra- 
tion of the coral barriers which lay between him 
and Thursday Island. The weather was perfect and 
could be depended upon. It was the season of the 
regular south-east trade, the sunny rainless season 
of the Torres winter. The wind would gather 
strength every morning to a half gale at noon and 
then as evenly decline to a calm after sunset. The 
tides ran very strongly, between three and four 
knots, and gained in speed as the Straits narrowed, 
but to judge their tidal drift, and the variable lee- 
way due to the rise and fall of the trade wind, was 
child’s play to a seaman of Ching’s quality. Upon 
his chart were marked all the islands — many of 
them loftily volcanic, others low coral atolls — and 
the sandbanks, knovm locally as cays. He could 
work by taking bearings of the more conspicuous 
island features, and by calculating his horizontal 
danger angles with a generous margin. He assumed 
that every island had an inner fringing reef and an 
outer barrier — though many of them had no barrier 
— and that every turf -swept cay shelved slowly into 
the depths. Time was not his master, and Ching 
was a cautious man. When one evening, just after 
sunset, he raised the beacon on the Bramble Cay, 
and found the position of the yacht very near to 
his dead reckoning, he patted himself on the back 
and went to dinner with a mind temporarily at ease. 
He dropped his anchor off the Black Rocks at the 


70 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


exact point for which he had aimed — the Bligh" 
Entrance to the North-East Channel. 

“ Now the fun is about to begin,” said he, smiling. 
Madame plied him with broad flattery, and the 
Chief did his rather clumsy best to support her. 
Now that the yacht was actually in the Straits, 
Ewing had enough of good sense to attend to his 
own job, and to leave Ching unharried to attend 
to his. Both Madame and Ewing were well pleased 
to see the Captain smile. 

Navigation on the following day would have been 
less hair-raising if the chart had been half as wise 
as it pretended. But since most of its features were 
based upon surveys of some half a century earlier, 
and the coral polyp is an industrious creature, there 
was a wide margin of conjecture left to the hardy 
sailor. The channels were deep enough — Ching 
sometimes had fourteen fathoms and usually not 
less than ten under his forefoot — but there were so 
many of them, and they were so liberally cut into 
by what in trench warfare were called traverses, 
that running a vessel through them was very like 
threading an imperfectly remembered maze. Still 
the Skipper^s eye for water held true, he could gen- 
erally tell by the look of the surface if the reefs 
were closing in upon him, and the lead which Was 
freely kept going warned him off the sandbanks. 
He ran dead slow all through the day, except when 
the tide setting against him called for half speed. 
More than once he was obliged to stop and back 
out of a Giil de sac, but, as I have said, there was 
usually plenty of water under foot, and a timely 
warning by eye or lead when obstructions were 
reaching up towards the broken surface, All 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 


71 


through the day the Humming Top never touched 
once, and Ching began to feel that he needed but a 
licence to rate himself a pilot of the Straits. But 
his self-satisfaction was not destined to last very 
long. 

It was about five o’clock, and for an hour past 
the Skipper had noticed a fully decked yawl, sailed 
apparently single-'handed, following on his own 
course about a mile to leeward. With the tide 
under her, and sailing on a beam wind, this thirty- 
foot yawl was moving rather faster than the big 
yacht which she was gradually overhauling. The 
yawl pulled in more and more to the south-west, 
and passing astern of the Humming Top, reached 
out towards a group of islands which Ching judged 
to be away from his own channel. He himself bore 
off almost due west, and the gap between the steam 
yacht and the yawl opened out rapidly. That was 
at about five o’clock. Ching was therefore surprised 
half an hour later to see the yawl come flying out 
of space with the wind behind her, and steering 
direct for his own port bow with apparently a com- 
plete disregard for the intricacies of the coral chan- 
nels. He put up his glass. The yawl was, as he 
had judged, sailed single-handed. Her skipper, a 
small white figure with a bare black head, was sit- 
ting by the tiller, and, as Ching looked, he seemed 
to be waving one hand. There could be no doubt 
that the yawl was making for the yacht, so, with 
sailor courtesy, Ching ran off his engines and 
waited for the little craft to arrive. 

She came with a rush and swirl which showed at 
least, high courage in her solitary navigator. She 
passed the bow of the Humrmng Top at about a 


72 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


hundred yards distance, swung under the lee of the 
yacht, and skilfully used the flow of the tide as a 
brake upon her progress. The white flgure sprang 
up, let the yawl swing with flapping sails into the 
wind, and then in thirty active seconds had low- 
ered and roughly stowed mainsail, jib and foresail. 
He left the spanker standing set on the small mizzen 
aft. The whole manoeuvre was so accurately timed 
that the yacht had lost her way when she arrived 
close beside the Humming Top’s counter. In a 
moment more the visitor had caught a line which 
was deftly thrown to him from the yacht, reeved 
it through a ringbolt by his bowsprit, hauled his 
little vessel half round, and sprang, active as a 
monkey, up the seven feet of freeboard to the Hum- 
ming Top’s rail. His deserted yawl trailed away 
at the end of the line, and her late skipper and 
crew, now aboard the Humming Top, strolled for- 
rard grinning capaciously. It could now be seen 
that though clad in the white Palm Beach trousers, 
and fine cotton shirt of an Englishman, he was a 
dark-skinned, frizzy-haired Melanesian. His feet 
were bare and his head was bare; the s^iirt and 
trousers seemed to comprise his entire wardrobe. 

He moved forrard looking curiously and eagerly 
at the yacht’s equipment. He mounted the steps 
of the shade deck on which were stowed four life- 
boats, a small dinghy, and a twenty-foot motor 
launch. His eye ran closely over all of them ; the 
motor boat seemed specially to please him. He 
passed the yellow funnel, and peered into the smoke- 
room, a pleasant structure in which Madame Gil- 
bert spent much of her time on deck. She was 
within at the moment knitting her ninth jumper — 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 


73 


she caught a glimpse of a dark grinning face, and 
started slightly at the contrast between the brown 
of the face and the bright blue eyes which looked 
eagerly out of it. It was the face of a boy of some 
twenty years. Madame saw him for a brief instant, 
and wondering who he was, and how he had reached 
the yacht — she had not witnessed his masterly 
boarding operation — came out on the boat deck to 
see more. An unexpected incident is very welcome 
indeed on a long voyage unbroken except by smug- 
gling operations and the knitting of jumpers. The 
boy reached the chart-room and wheel-house above 
which was built the bridge, with its engine and 
steering telegraphs. Ching from the bridge looked 
down upon the boy, and the boy looked up at 
Ching. The visitor waved a hand at the Captain. 

“ Cheerio, Skipper,” cried he. You are a bit off 
your course, aren’t you? ” His voice was not un- 
pleasing and his English was surprisingly good for 
a coffee-coloured native — dark coffee, too. 

“ That depends on what the course is,” replied 
Ching shortly. He was frowning, and his genial 
eye had gone cold. 

What I have described did not occupy more than 
a very few minutes, during which time the yacht, 
with her engines stopped, was idly drifting under 
the influence of wind and tide. 

At present,” said the boy, showing his fine white 
teeth as he grinned broadly, you are bound for the 
Way*ior Eeefs. That was why I boarded you.” 

Ching spoke briefly to a sailor who was with him 
on the bridge, and then dropped down to the chart- 
room beneath. The boy mounted the bridge ladder, 
and took a comprehensive look round. [What he 


74 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


saw did not please Mm. His blue eyes hardened — • 
they were bright steely blue, very unusual eyes even 
in an English face, and incredible in a native of the 
Torres Straits — and going straight to one of the 
engine-room telegraphs pulled the lever over to half 
speed astern. The bell clanged. 

As a wounded tiger bursts open-mouthed and rag- 
ing from its ravished retreat in the jungle so Ching 
furiously burst from the chart-room at the sound of 
that bell. And for my part I would sooner face a 
wounded tiger in the jungle than a mild-mannered 
Devonshire ship captain upon whose engine-room 
telegraph I had set my lawless hand. The Skipper 
sprang on the bridge pushed the boy away so 
roughly that he sprawled over the weather cloths, 
snapped the telegraph back to STOP, and roared: 

Chuck this nig — ^young feller into his boat and 
cut him adrift.” It says much, very much, for 
the inherent kindliness of our Robert Ching that 
even under stress of an unparalleled trespass upon 
his prerogatives as commander, he bit back the of- 
fensive word nigger.” 

The sailor sprang at the boy, who evaded the rush 
with lithe ease. He was quite calm, and still 
grinned cheerfully. 

Wait,” cried he, in a tone so gleefully signifi- 
cant that the sailor stopped, and even Ching looked 
up curiously. Wait,” cried the boy, holding up 
his hand. They waited until one might count per- 
haps ten, and then that for which they waited 
befell : 

G-RRR-H, G-RRR-H, G-RRR-H! 

The Humming Top took the hidden reef with a 
slow grinding crash which made her shiver, and 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 


75 


under pressure of wind and tide she bit deeper and 
deeper into the coral. It was well for her at that 
moment that between her steel plates and the reef 
there interposed the faithful baulks of previsionary 
teak. 

The boy, with a heedless courage which to me 
seems almost sublime — after all a skipper is a skip- 
per and a very great man on his own bridge — the 
boy pushed past the Captain of the yacht, laid his 
brown sacrilegious hand once more on the engine- 
room telegraph, and banged the lever over to FULL 
SPEED ASTERN. 

Go,” he said sharply to the amazed sailorman. 

Jump into my yawl, and fend her off as we go 
astern.” 

I am afraid that when that crash came the Chief 
Engineer laughed. He had seen nothing of the 
incidents on deck, but the sudden grounding of the 
yacht, after the strange vacillations of the tele- 
graph, suggested that Ching had blundered badly. 
And Ewing, as a platonic rival with Ching for the 
favours of Madame Gilbert, was not disposed to 
cry over the Skipper^s troubles. He gave full speed 
astern with a will and under the hefty pull of the 
twin screws the yacht was dragged off within a 
few seconds. The tide happily was flowing. 

‘^Keep her so,” ordered the boy, indicating the 
correct course with his hand, and the Skipper, to 
his own surprise, kept her so. There was an inti- 
mate local knowledge and a masterful confidence 
about this intrusive Melanesian which made him 
irresistible. 

From that moment, extraordinary as it may seem 
to the reader, that strange boy took charge. He 


76 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


set the backward course, and kept the Humming 
Top at full speed astern for more than three miles. 
Ching had overshot a hidden turning in the 
channel ; he had run into a narrow byway in which 
there was no space for so long a vessel to turn 
round. She was 230 feet over all. The new pilot 
quite evidently needed no chart, and possibly would 
not have understood one had it been spread before 
him. Every reef and bank was as familiar to him 
from constant sailing by them as are the streets of 
one’s native town. He conned the Humming Top 
by movements of his hand, for though he under- 
stood the uses of an engine-room telegraph, that 
other telegraph which controlled the wheel below 
was apparently strange to him. He gave his orders 
by signs and the rightful skipper humbly obeyed. 
It was a triumph of intensive local experience over 
professional training. 

When he had backed the yacht a sufficient dis- 
tance to satisfy his own judgment this boy sent her 
forward once more — ^not at poor Ching’s cautious 
dead slow or half speed, but at a ramping eleven 
knots^ — following the windings of the deep water- 
ways with consummate assurance. Now and then, 
when it seemed to the eye of Ching that he was 
running straight upon surf-broken dangers, a 
sailor would be ordered forward with the lead, but 
the result was always the same. The depth was 
never less than ten fathoms, and the broken water 
was an innocuous tide rip. 

This went on for more than an hour, the evening 
drew on, and Ching, at last convinced that he was 
in the hands of a master of the Coral Sea, spoke. 
Hitherto he had obeyed the signs of the boy, obeyed 


WILLATOPY; PILOT 77 

thougli savagely reluctant, yet had said nothing. 
Now he spoke. 

“ Are you a pilot, boy? ” 

‘^Oh, no. I am no pilot. I am very rich and 
do not work. I was sailing down to Thursday 
Island in my yawl — to see my banker and collect 
my money. I have much money. When I saw you 
running this nice ship on the Warrior Eeefs I 
sailed across to show you the proper way. No 
pearl raking pilot can teach me anything. They 
are no good, no good at all.’’ 

“You seem to know the channels,” assented 
Ching. 

“All of them,” said the boy. “Not these only 
for a big big ship, but the little ones too. I do not 
sail in and out as I am taking you now. I cut 
across wherever I please. There is always water 
to be found if one knows where to look for it.” 

“ It is getting dark,” said Ching, “ and there is a 
short twilight in these latitudes. Can you see or 
shall we anchor now? ” 

“ I can see. I can steer you all through the night 
if you please. But if you and the white lady, the 
beautiful white lady with the hair so red, would 
wish to anchor, I will take you to a safe place.” His 
hand waved here and there; the growing darkness 
made no difference to him, and presently the Hum- 
ming Top was riding quietly at her anchor in the 
lagoon of a low coral atoll. The boy had conned 
her through the barrier reef and laid her up in the 
smooth water within. Ching gasped as the yacht 
slipped in through a narrow gap in the reef little 
wider than her own 30 feet of beam. It was like 


78 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


pushing a Rolls-Royce in between two threatening 
motor lorries. 

Boy,” said Ching slowly, when the anchor had 
splashed into the warm quiet sea. I meant to 
throw you overboard and you jolly well deserved 
it for monkeying with my telegraph. But I will 
say that you are a daisy of a pilot.” 

As they came down from the bridge they met 
Madame by the smoke-room. 

Who is that? ” she enquired. A native pilot? ” 
“ No,” replied the boy, before Ching could speak. 
“ I am no pilot. I am very rich and do no work. 
I am going to Thursday Island to see my banker 
and get my money. I am Willatopy.” 


CHAPTER VI 


A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS 

'T^HEY were gathered in the smoke-room which 
^ was planted upon the boat deck abaft the 
chart-house. It was the snuggery held in common 
by Madame and Ching and Ewing; to them was now 
added another — Willatopy, Pilot. Madame, when 
she heard his name so unexpectedly had switched 
up the lights behind her and invited him to enter. 
She wanted to see him clearly, and to collect her 
thoughts. All through the long voyage she had pic- 
tured her meeting with a naked Cannibal in the 
appropriate setting of a tropical coral island. Yet 
here and now had come to her out of the seas a 
young man, passably English in dress except for 
his bare feet, passably English in speech, and a 
good deal superior to the English in his masterly 
knowledge of the variegated depths of his native 
seas. The blue eyes of this young man who called 
himself Willatopy had astonished her when first 
she came under their quick steely flash ; now when 
they were bent upon her, quite plainly in admira- 
tion, she sensibly shrank before their bright intel- 
ligence. They were the Toppys eyes; she had ad- 
mired them when set in Sir John’s pale face; out 
of the dark, almost black countenance of young 
Willatopy they shone like beacons. They were 
beacons, the burning evidences of his Toppys blood. 

.79 


80 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


It was their first night in the Straits — ^what 
Stevenson, pumped dry of tropical epithets, so often 
called “ a wonderful night of stars.” Yet Madame 
Gilbert had no eyes and no mind for the wonder 
of it. She could think of nothing but the Cannibal 
who for months had seemed to be so very remote 
and who was now so very near. Indeed exactly op- 
posite to her, seated cross-legged like an English- 
man upon a sofa bunk. His lips and nostrils were 
rather thick and broad, and his hair distinctly 
negroid — one should, I suppose, say Australoid — he 
was of the colour of strong coffee, yet he was not 
in the least like a Cannibal. 

‘^Gatepath must be even a bigger fool than I 
thought,” muttered Madame angrily to herself. 
Which was unjust. She had not, like Gatepath, 
been chased down to a boat by a naked furious 
Willatopy urged on to speed by the prod of a fish 
spear. But at that moment Madame was unwill- 
ing to be just, especially to Roger Gatepath. 

What makes your hair so red?” asked Willatopy 
suddenly. 

It grows that way,” murmured Madame feebly. 

I have never seen hair red like that,” observed 
Willatopy. At Thursday Island the white 
women\s hair is black or muddy. Not nice. Your 
hair is very nice. It shines like, like red copper. 
And your skin is whiter than any skin I have seen. 
Are you white like that all over under your 
clothes? ” 

“ Young man,” said Ewing, who had just entered 
and caught the last enquiry. You are vairy in- 
discreet. Leddies do not possess what they do not 
please to show us.” 


A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS 


81 


^^No?” Willatopy lifted his eyebrows. ^^But 
Madame ” — he had caught the title from Ching — 
“ has such beautiful skin. Her stockings shine, like 
rich bronze, and are very beautiful, but I think that 
her legs would be much nicer without all those 
stockings and petticoats.” 

Ewing grinned. Ohing frowned. Madame for a 
moment almost blushed and then laughed in her old 
rippling fashion. 

^‘Willatopy,” said she, ^^if you don’t mind we 
will change the subject. White men don’t talk like 
that about white women, and you must try to be- 
have like a white man. It was all your fault, Alex- 
ander,” she went on severely. If you had left the 
boy alone I would have dealt with him myself. How 
often must I tell you that Scotsmen have no tact? ” 

“ The Scots are a vairy great people,” proclaimed 
Ewing, unabashed. “We are too great for the 
snivelling hypocrisy which the English folk call tak. 
We say just what we think.” 

“ And that is what makes you so exasperating to 
live with,” rasped Madame. 

“ Scots ! ” cried Willatopy. “ I know the Scots. 
There was one of them at Thursday Island. He 
was always drinking whisky and always drunk. He 
used to chant songs, long, miles long, and used to 
shout, as he rolled over hugging a bottle, ‘ From 
scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs.’ ” 

Willatopy’s exact imitation of the old drunkard’s 
accent, which was not widely different from Ewing’s 
own accent, sent Madame and Ching into a roar of 
laughter. 

“ I will mind yon,” growled the Chief. 

“ No, you won’t,” commanded Madame, You 


82 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


will treat Willatopy very kindly. He is tlie pilot, 
and our lives are in his hands. You have brought 
your troubles on your own silly head, Alexander, 
and I don’t sympathise with you one little bit. Now, 
Willatopy, tell us about yourself, how you came to 
be here, where you live, and how it is that you) 
speak English so well.” 

I am not English,” said Willatopy, rather un- 
necessarily. My father was English, a very grand 
Chief in his own country, but he did not love the 
English. He always said to me when I was so, so 
high,” he indicated a child of about the height of 
the bunk on which he was sitting. He said to me, 
‘ Willie, you belong to your mother’s people. You 
are a Hula, of the tribe of fishers and swimmers and 
sailors of the sea. It is better to be a Hula than 
an Englishman.’ I remember the words of my 
father, whose hair was long and yellow, and his 
eyes blue like mine. The girls say’’ — he spoke a 
sentence in native dialect and then translated — 

they say that my eyes are blue as the sky before 
dawn. The brown girls love my eyes. Do you love 
my eyes, Madame? I love yours; they shine like 
the English violets which my father planted, like 
the violets shine before the sun has soaked up the 
morning dew.” 

^‘You should not say things like that, young 
man,” reproved Ewing. Madame will be very 
angry.” 

Oh, shut up, Alexander,” snapped Madame Gil- 
bert. “ I want to listen to the boy. He has paid 
me a pretty compliment. Thank you, Willatopy. 
I like your bright steely blue eyes. The girls on 
your island have good taste.” 


A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS 


83 


Have you a husband, Madame?’’ enquired 
Willatopy eagerly. 

“ Yes,” replied Madame with hardihood. I have 
a fine big husband, and I love him very much.” 

I am sorry,” said Willatopy, simply. I think 
that I should like to marry you myself. I am a 
grown man and very rich. I would have built a 
very fine hut for you on my island, and I would 
have taken one of my girls to be your maiden.” 

“ You are not very old, Willatopy, and it will be 
better fun for you not to be married just yet. My 
own fine big husband would not wish me to take 
another one, not even you.” 

^^No,” assented Willatopy, true to the strictly 
monogamous code of the Straits. One time, one 
husband. But it is a great pity. You are very 
beautiful, and I love you. The Skipper he called 
me a nigger, Madame, but you do not call me a 
nigger.” 

I didn’t,” growled Ohing, to whom the whole 
scene was highly offensive. But if it wasn’t for 
Madame here I would soon show you your proper 
place.” 

‘‘Willatopy is half white,” explained Madame. 
“ He is not an ordinary native. And you said your- 
self he was a daisy of a pilot.” 

“ So he is. As a pilot and down with' the men in 
the foc’s’le he would be in his proper place. But 
here, talking like this before you, he makes me sick. 
If you will excuse me, Madame, I will go to my 
chart-room.” Ching stumped off with a sour face, 
but the more politic Ewing remained. He did not 
propose that the novel attractions of Willatopy 
should have the field entirely to themselves. 


84 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Willatopy, though half white in blood and quite 
passably well taught by his late father and in the 
mission schools on Murray Island, had all the in- 
consequence of a native. He would jump about 
from one subject to another, like a bee among flow- 
ers, sipping here and there, and then skipping on 
forgetful of where he had last been. He continued 
to stare at Madame in deep admiration — never in 
his small experience had he seen a woman with 
hair so richly red, eyes of so dazzling a violet, or a 
figure so graciously indicated by the clinging folds 
of a modern dress. His idea of woman had hitherto 
been of the crudest — black hair and eyes, and brown 
limbs fully revealed. But though he continued to be 
absorbed by the feminine mystery of Madame — ‘ 
there is no mystery about nakedness — ^he forgot all 
about his recent matrimonial suggestions. 

“ I sail everywhere in my yawl,’^ said he. When 
the tide is high I go straight over the reefs. They 
are nothing. But when the water falls I keep to 
the channels. Not the deep channels ; the little ones 
which wander in and out among the islands. It 
was my father’s yawl. He brought her out from 
England, from his own country. She was built — 
I forget where; perhaps I shall remember soon. It 
is no matter. In Baru, where I live with my mother 
and my sisters, my father bought miles and miles 
of shore and forest. It is all mine now, though my 
mother calls it hers. My father said to me, ^ It will 
be all yours, Willie, when I die, though your mother 
must keep it while she lives.’ My father was very 
rich, and I am now very rich. I do not work. 
There are fish, plenty fish, in the sea ; we catch them 
with nets and in our hands. We are Hula fishers, 


A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS 


85 


and the sea is our home as much as the land. We 
hunt turtle and dugong. Both are easy. If you 
will come with me to my island, Madame, I will 
show you how to fish on the Barrier Reef and how 
to hunt the dugong with spears, and to catch the 
silly turtle with suckers. My father said, ‘ When 
God plants bananas and papaw and chestnuts in 
the woods, and fills the sea with fish and dugong, 
and turtle, there is no need for man to waste his 
life in work.’ My father loved Baru and the Hula 
more than he loved England and the English. My 
father was a beachcomber,” added Willatopy, 
proudly. 

“ I have never sailed the southern part of these 
Straits,” said Ewing. But I know New Guinea. 
The Hula tribe belong to New Guinea.” 

“ That is so,” assented Willatopy. My father 
took my mother from the Hula pile village at Bulaa, 
and brought her to Baru, which he bought. Not the 
whole island, but miles and miles of shore and for- 
est. I am half English and half Hula, but I love 
Hula and hate English. Except you, Madame. 
When I go to Thursday Island in my yawl to see 
my banker and to get my money — it comes from 
England, my money does, in big bags — ^I see Eng- 
lish, and Japanese, plenty Japanese, but I do not 
love them, not a bit. I shall never go to England. 
My father said when I was so, so high : ^ Always 
stick to Hula, Willie, never go to England.’ And 
I never will.” 

Madame refiected. She was called upon to make 
a decision of some moment. Now that Willatopy, 
risen from the sea, had taken possession of the Hum^ 
ming Top, it was plain that he must remain on 


86 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


board until she let go her anchor at his island home. 
She would never arrive without him. Ching was 
an excellent deep-sea sailor, but Willatopy was im- 
measurably his superior as a pilot of the Straits. 
It was also obvious that the blood connection be- 
tween Willatopy and the Family of Toppys must 
soon come out, though it would no>t necessarily be 
assumed that he was the legitimate heir of the 
family title. Half blood is much more common 
than legitimacy. Madame, of course, did not intend 
at any time to disclose the fact of her pre-knowl- 
edge. The revelation of Willatopy’s parentage must 
be drawn from the artless boy himself. And since 
it seemed to Madame that a disclosure must come 
sooner or later, it were on the whole better that it 
should come sooner. Her task would thereby be 
made the more easy. So she led the boy gently, 
imperceptibly, to the point at which his identity 
would become manifest. From Gossip Ewing the 
toothsome scandal would spread over the ship as 
rapidly as if one shouted it from the bridge. 

“ I am very dark,” observed Willatopy, flying off 
upon quite a new tack, darker than my mother, 
who is pure Hula. Though I have the blue eyes 
of my father, my skin is very dark; it is like my 
face all over. When I go to Thursday Island I 
wear these white clothes, but at home in my island 
I wear nothing — almost nothing. When you come 
to my island, Madame, you shall dress Hula fashion 
like my sisters. My sisters are very pale skinned ; 
my father said that they were the colour of fawns 
in England.” 

‘‘You remember your father very well,” said 


A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS 


87 


Madame, ignoring the suggestion of a future cos- 
tume for herself. Has he been dead long? ” 

Years and years. Before the war. I was so 
high when he died.’’ Willatopy indicated the stature 
of a boy of about twelve. “ But I remember him 
very well indeed. He and I used to sail together 
in the yawl, and I learned all the channels; every 
one. He always said to me, ^ Be wise when you 
grow up, Willie. Stick to Tops Island. Never go 
to England. They are all ravening wolves in Eng- 
land where every man preys on his neighbour.’ He 
meant, I think, that the English are cannibals. The 
Hula cut off the heads of their enemies — it is the 
custom — but they are not cannibals any longer. 
The English are cannibals. They devour one an- 
other.” 

Madame laughed, and thought of Roger Gate- 
path. This was a turning of the tables in rich 
earnest. Your father meant that there are very 
many English crowded upon a small island, and 
that they try to get money from one another.” 

They are just like that in Thursday Island,” 
cried Willatopy eagerly, to show that he under- 
stood. When I go there for my money, and carry 
it away in a bag, the English try to make me drink 
so that they may steal my money. But they never 
get it. I do not drink when I have my bag to 
guard.” 

Good man,” said Ewing, with approval. Never 
mix up whisky and business.” 

Never mix up whisky with anything,” advised 
Madame sententiously. 

I never do,” observed Ewing, grinning at her. 

^‘Be quiet, Alexander. Willatopy has taken 


88 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


warning by that horrible countryman of yours in 
Thursday Island, and means always to be a good 
boy. He won’t drink even when he hasn’t a bag 
to guard. And now, Willie, tell us. Do you remem- 
ber what part of England your father sailed from? ” 
Willatopy puckered his forehead. He was not 
accustomed to search his memory. The personality 
of the father had made a deep ineradicable impres- 
sion upon the boy, but he knew very little of his 
origin and sought not to enquire. The savage half 
of him took everything as it came without comment. 
‘‘ It was by the sea, I am sure,” said he at last, 
for there was a big battle long ago which the Eng- 
lish won. It was a battle at sea. It is all in the 
history books at Murray Island.” He dismissed the 
subject, but Madame stuck to her questions. 

Whom did the English beat? ” she asked. 

I don’t know,” indifferently. Yes, I remem- 
ber. Spaniards.’^ 

Was it the Spanish Armada? ” 

Yes, that was it. The Spanish Armada. My 
father’s father fought the Spaniards.” Willatopy’s 
conception of time did not reach much beyond a 
single generation. Centuries and historical dates 
conveyed nothing to him. 

Yon place must have been Plymouth,” observed 
Ewing. Madame, for one, blessed, the gratuitously 
informative Scot. 

Thank you, Alexander. You are quick. So 
your father came from Devonshire? ” 

Yes, Devonshire. He often spoke to me of that 
country. I had forgotten. The yawl was built 
there — at Tops Ham, the Home of the Toppys, my 
father’s home. He sailed straight away from the 


A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS 


89 


Home of the Toppys to Baru. It is Barn in the 
native speech/’ explained Willatopy. “But we 
often call it Tops Island. 

The murder was out now. Madame stared at 
Ewing, opening her eyes very wide, and Ewing 
stared at her. 

“ What is all this? ” exclaimed the puzzled Chief. 
“ The Home of Toppys — Tops Island. I don’t 
clearly comprehend. What is your name, boy? ” 

“ Willatopy.” 

“ I know. But what is your real name, your Eng- 
lish name?” 

“ Willie Toppys.” 

“ And who the blue blazes was your father? ” 
roared Ewing, rising up in excitement. Madame 
did her best to affect an equally excited interest. 

“ My father,” said Willatopy with dignity, “ was 
the Honourable William Toppys. He was a Great 
Chief in England.” 

Ewing fell into his chair so suddenly that its 
revolution nearly pitched him out again. 

“ Christ ! ” shouted he. “ He is a by-blow of Mr. 
William.” 

The Chief Engineer jumped up, rushed to the 
chart-room, where Ching was sulking in solitude, 
and returned dragging his commanding officer by 
the coat collar. 

“ Ching,” he roared, pointing at Willatopy. 
“ D’ye ken the bairn’s ee’ noo? ” 

“I don’t ken the Moor’s blasted eye,” growled 
Ching. “ Why should I? ” 

“ D’ye ever see an ee’ like to yon oot of a Toppys 
heid? ” 

Ching grudgingly admitted that the eyes of Willa- 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


topy were by some impertinent freak of Nature not 
unlike those which distinguished the Family. 

Madame broke in. The scene was becoming 
ridiculous, and Willatopy was getting cross. He felt 
that Ewing was making a show of him. 

“ Alexander,’’ commanded Madame. Sit down 
and keep quiet. Captain,” she went on, we have 
just discovered that Willatopy our pilot is a son of 
Mr. William Toppys, who went to the South Seas 
twenty years ago and died there.” 

“ I expect that our Mr. William has left a lot of 
brown brats scattered up and down the Islands,” 
grunted Ching. The boy is a good and useful 
pilot, but half bhood don’t make him a Toppys.” 

“ He is a Toppys, and we can’t treat him as a 
stranger in a Toppys ship. Willie,” went on Ma- 
dame in her sweetest, most silvery tones. ‘^By a 
wonderful coincidence you have come to the help 
of your own people. This yacht, the Humming Top, 
is owned by Sir John Toppys, Baronet of Wigan. 
We are all employed by the Family of which you 
are a member. You have dropped quite by accident 
among your own people. Sir John Toppys must be 
a cousin of yours.” 

Are you a cousin of mine, Madame? ” asked 
Willatopy eagerly. 

“No. I am a friend, that is all. But aren’t you 
frightfully interested? ” 

Willatopy considered the situation. “ It would 
have been very nice to have had you for a cousin, 
Madame. A sort of white sister. But I don’t want 
the Skipper to be my cousin. I am a Hula, and 
do not love the English. Also I am hungry, and 
want my food.” 


A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS 


91 


As a subject for the exhibition of frightful ex- 
citement, Willatopy was a complete failure. He 
was bored. He had talked himself tired and hungry. 
He wanted food and afterwards sleep. He had no 
use, as the Americans say, for the cousinhood of 
Sir John Toppys, Baronet of Wigan. 

Ching turned his rude back upon the discovered 
scion of Toppys, but the kind-hearted Chief led 
him away, presented him to the greatly interested 
Officers’ Mess — Marie declared that she was rav- 
ished at the discovery — and left him in their care. 

Later that evening, when Madame had gone to 
her stateroom, the Captain and Chief Engineer 
drew together in their own quarters. 

I have been reckoning,” observed Ewing, how 
mysterious are the ways of Providence. There yon- 
der in England is the great House of Toppys with- 
out an heir, unless it be old Sir J ohn ; and here in 
the South Seas there drops in one son of Mr. Wil- 
liam, and maybe, as you say, lots more of them are 
round about. To him that hath shall be given more 
than he wants — or intends to keep — and to him that 
hath not shall be taken away the heirs in whom 
his heart rejoices. When Lord Topsham’s son and 
nephews were all killed in the war the old man just 
withered away. His House is desolate. I am think- 
ing that if this nigger here, whom they call Willa- 
topy, had not been born the wrong side of the 
blanket he would now have been the long-lost heir 
of the Barony of Topsham.” 

r That’s nowt,” grunted Ching, He and all like 
Thim are just spawn. There may, for all we know, 
}be a brown Topy on every island in the Straits.” 

Maybe aye, maybe no. It is like enough. The 


92 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Idle Rich are bestially immoral in their habits. 
Still, if by some chance Mr. William had married 
this nigger’s mother the boy would have been the 
Lord of Topsham. Ching, I am a grandly circum- 
spections man. I am uneasy, powerful uneasy. 
Why did Sir John Toppys send out the Humming 
Top to these waters with that foreign Madame on 
board of her? She’s not his mistress, I am sure of 
that. She is a great French lady. Why did he do 
it? Did he know, think you, that there was a Willa- 
topy here? ” 

He wouldn’t have bothered his head about a 
Moor, anyway. The yacht was idle, and Madame 
wanted a voyage. That’s reason enough for the 
likes of us.” 

All coloured men are not Moors, you old Eliza- 
bethan seadog. This is a brown heathen Melan- 
esian, not a Musulman Turk. Ohing, I tell you that 
I am uneasy. My brain is buzzing with queer 
thoughts. It sticks in my mind that when that 
Willatopy told us the name of his father, our pretty 
Madame wasn’t nearly so surprised as she sought to 
make me think she was. She seemed to my mind 
to be expecting it.” 

You’ve got too much mind, Ewing. That is 
what’s the matter with you. You keep to your en- 
gine-room and I will keep to my bridge. The ways 
of the gentry have nowt to do with us.” 

At about the same time Marie was brushing out 
the red gold mane which flowed in splendid waves 
over Madame’s broad back. There was nothing 
grudged when Madame was designed and built. 
Beauty and power went hand in hand at her fash- 
ioning. She could have crumpled up Marie, the 


A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS 


93 


sinuous French girl, in her strong hands, and 
stuffed her body through a port-hole. Their talk 
was carried on in vivid French ; I will do my best 
to render its purport in pale English. 

“Did you ever see such eyes?” sighed Marie. 
“They go through me like swords. And his feet 
and hands. Quite small, Madame. It is easy to 
see that his blood is of the brightest azure. Did 
you say his father was an English Lord? ” 

“ Marie,” said Madame, crossly. “ You are dis- 
gustingly promiscuous. I have allowed you two 
deck officers and two engineers. All fine handsome 
white men. Yet you must now be googling at a 
coffee-coloured savage. I won’t have it, Marie.” 

“He is not a savage; he is most intellectual. 
His English is perfect — much better than mine. 
And he knows a few words, they are certainly but a 
few, of our French tongue. He is aristocrat. Is 
he not a cousin of the rich Sir John Toppys? ” 

“ It is a cousinship which the aristocracy do not 
usually recognise,” observed Madame drily. “ Willa- 
topy is in my charge, and I won’t have him played 
with. Especially by an old campaigner like you. 
Do what you please with the officers, I give them 
to you, but leave Willatopy alone. These half- 
castes are dangerous to meddle with. Remember, 
if I have any reason to suspect that you are up to 
your usual tricks, I will send you straight back to 
France.” 

Marie shuddered, and promised that she would be 
cold as an icicle. She shivered as if her blood had 
been physically chilled, for there were grave rea- 
sons, the very gravest of reasons, why Marie Lam- 
bert did not desire to be sent back to France, 


CHAPTEE VII 


FATHER AND SON 

T^ILLATOPY, standing in dignified solitude 
’ ^ upon the Captain’s bridge, conned the Hum- 
ming Top through the deep water channels of bewil- 
dering intricacy which led from the Dungeness Keef 
to Thursday Island. Ching, too good a sailor not 
to recognise a master when he met one, had with- 
drawn to the chart-room, and left Willatopy to his 
unchallengeable eminence. The boy, quickly grasp- 
ing the purpose and use of the steering telegraph, 
now transmitted his orders direct to the quarter- 
master beneath his feet in the wheel-house. He was 
a sailor by right of birth on both sides of the house. 
His ancestors of Devon had played a faithful, if 
not a very distinguished part, in the history of the 
Koyal Navy; there has not often been a generation 
since Harry the Eighth without at least one Toppys 
in the books of the Navy Office. The Hulas of New 
Guinea, who to this day build their huts out to sea 
upon the butt ends of roughly driven piles — like 
our Neolithic ancestors of the Swiss Lake Dw^ell- 
ings — are a tribe of amphibians. Upon the mari- 
time side of his being there was no collision between 
white and brown blood in the veins of Willatopy. 
He was salt all through; saturated with the sea 
lore which is the subconscious heritage from a naval 
ancestry; bitten to the bone by sea instincts derived 
94 


FATHER AND SON 


95 


from countless generations of Hula fishers in the 
Coral waters. 

How in blazes do you remember like that? ” 
asked Ching once as Willatopy drove at full speed 
with a five-knot tide under him into the hidden 
maze of coral. 

I don’t remember,” replied Willie easily, as he 
delicately manipulated the steering telegraph, and 
swung the big yacht this way and that, as surely 
as a racing motorist swings his car. I don’t re- 
member; I know.” He never looked at Ching’s 
chart; he never appeared to take any bearings — 
although those bright, penetrative blue eyes, rang- 
ing out over the encircling islands, were all the 
while noting familiar land features and making 
their own quick unconscious calculations. He never 
hesitated for one instant. The Skipper down be- 
low, following Willatopy’s course upon the chart, 
would sometimes tremble when he saw by how much 
the boy ignored the line a careful Admiralty had 
laid down. But he was too wise to interfere. If 
you take a pilot you must trust to him, and Willa- 
topy, though he scorned the professional title, was 
a pilot beyond compare. He did not remember ; he 
knew. 

Madame Gilbert was on the boat deck when the 
yacht drew in towards Port Kennedy. She frowned 
viciously upon Thursday Island, that sorry western 
gate of the lovely tropic Straits. A treeless, deso- 
late waste dotted with corrugated iron buildings. 
Cluster the iron buildings a little, drive wide dusty 
roads between clumps of them, and one has Port 
Kennedy, the seat of government. Impelled by 
greed of pearl and shell; and undeterred by the 


96 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


stark hideousness of the Island, the sweepings of 
most nations have poured down upon that uncomely 
spot, and have greatly contributed to make it what 
it is, and to keep from reaching up towards better 
things. 

‘‘Poor Willatopy,” murmured Madame as she 
gazed upon the polluted scene. “ So this is his point 
of contact with white civilisation. Better Tops 
Island, a hundred times.^’ 

A mile away from the port, Willatopy handed 
over his charge to her lawful skipper. “ Take her 
in. I go in my yawl.” He dropped down the 
bridge ladder, and ran pattering along the deck. 
At a sign from Madame he stopped. 

“ I go in my yawl,” cried he, pointing to where 
that little craft of his bobbed up and down in the 
yacht’s wash at the end of her towing line. 

“ But, Willatopy,” protested Madame, “ I am go- 
ing to your island, and we can’t possibly find our 
way unless you come as our pilot.” 

“ I come, Madame, after two, three days. You 
wait for me. I go to see my banker, and to get my 
money, in a bag. Then I go to one of my brown 
girls. She loves my eyes which are like the sky 
before dawn.” 

Willatopy raced away aft. He pulled the yawl 
in by her line, vaulted over the yacht’s rail, and 
plumped down in the middle of her swaying deck. 
Up went mainsail, foresail, jib ; she had no topsail. 
The driver had remained set. Willie cast off the 
line and a moment later his little vessel was lean- 
ing over to the trade wind and flying up the har- 
bour. The boy had not even troubled to stop the 
yacht’s engines to make more easy his tranship- 


FATHER AND SON 


97 


ment. And Ching did not love Willatopy enough 
to stop them for him. It was a flying transfer, but 
done so easily and surely that Madame hardly real- 
ised the simian skill of it. She stood by the rail 
watching the yawl pitch as the swell took her, and 
the white bare-headed figure which grew smaller 
and smaller every instant. 

So I have to wait at this horrible Thursday 
Island while Master Willie takes his pleasure with 
one of his brown girls. And it was only yesterday 
that he proposed himself to me as my husband! 
First it was Ching he put down ; now it is Madame 
Gilbert. Presently it will be Alexander, and then 
it will be Marie. When you come to sit in the 
House of Lords, friend Willatopy, what a very, very 
masterful Baron of Topsham you will be.” 
*«««*«* 

The Humming Top tied up at the hulk which 
does duty for a wharf at Thursday Island: Ewing, 
armed with a manifest of stores, and with the joy- 
ous light of battle in his shrewd Scots eye, departed 
to open an offensive upon the local markets. The 
Skipper disappeared as skippers always disappear 
in harbour, and Madame was left alone. Port Ken- 
nedy was flagrantly uninviting, yet she felt impelled 
to go ashore. One always does. First she exchanged 
gracious compliments with the Administrator to 
whom she carried letters of introduction from the 
Colonial Office, and then, by a happy inspiration, 
wandered off to find Willatopy’s banker. The boy 
fascinated her, and she wanted to talk about him. 
He was so entirely different from what Roger Gate- 
path had led her to expect that her mind was in 
a whirl. Perhaps this banker, who kept WiHa- 


98 


MADAME GILBERT'S CANNIBAL 


topy’s money — ^in large bags — might prove to be an 
understanding and communicative friend. He 
proved to be both — though Robert Grant, like all 
managers of banks in the outer fringes of the Em- 
pire, was a Scot of Scots. Madame commanded 
confidences even from a Scot of Scots. 

Mr. Grant,” said she, after her connection with 
the Family of Toppys had been discreetly explained. 

This queer boy Willatopy swooped down upon us 
in his yawl out of the wide sea, saved the Family 
yacht from imminent destruction on the reefs in 
your most dangerous Straits, piloted us here as 
easily as if he were sailing his own little boat, and 
then vanished. I understand that he has been here 
to draw his money in a bag, and has skipped away 
in his own rapid decided fashion to lay tribute at 
the naked feet of one of his brown girls. As a 
scorcher this Willatopy of yours w^ould give points 
to any young man whom I have ever met.” 

Grant smiled. He is what the Americans call 
a live wire. But before I tell you what I know 
about him, may I be permitted to ask the purpose 
of your enquiries?” 

Madame saw that she must put most of her cards 
on the table. The finer arts of feminine diplomacy 
would be wasted upon a creature so direct. 

“ That yacht yonder of mine,” said she, is owned 
by Sir John Toppys of Wigan, cousin and heir of 
the late Lord of Topsham. I have come out at his 
request to visit the irregular branch of the Family 
which is settled in the Torres Straits, and to do 
what I can to help them if they need or will accept 
my help.” 

^‘Bir John Toppys, cousin and heir,” repeated 


FATHER AND SON 


Grant curiously. ^^Has tho direct line then 
failed? 

Madame explained how the casualties of war had 
left the House desolate. 

So Sir John Toppys, cousin of the late Lord, is 
the heir/^ mused Grant reflectively. His brow 
puckered, and he looked at Madame acutely and 
suspiciously. She bore the scrutiny in that bland 
impenetrable way which has so often baffled me. 

So you are interested,’’ said he at last, in the 
irregular branch?” The emphasis upon the ad- 
jective was unmistakable. 

‘‘Well,” drawled Madame Gilbert, “you will 
agree that the colour is somewhat unusual.” 

Grant smiled again. He was thinking hard, and 
it was plain that he was familiar with the ramifica- 
tions of the Family of Toppys, and with the lawful 
rights of the Twenty-Eighth Baron. Until that mo- 
ment, however, he had not known that the direct 
white heirs had failed. 

When he spoke it was with deliberate, anxiously 
deliberate, emphasis. “The kindest service which 
you can render, Madame, to the coloured branch of 
Toppys is to leave them alone — in happy ignorant 
security. I repeat, ignorant security.” 

Madame drew a deep breath. For reasons which 
she did not yet appreciate, but which she was soon 
to understand, Willatopy’s banker was on her side, 
the side of Sir John Toppys, Baronet of Wigan. 

“ I was an intimate friend of Will Toppys,” went 
on Grant. “ I loved him, and think that I, alone 
among his white friends, sympathised with his 
withdrawal from white civilisation. Money and 
honours meant nothing to his simple soul. The few* 


100 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


hundreds a year wliich he drew through me from 
his property in England, the small plantation which 
he bought upon Tops Island, sufficed. He was in 
his way wealthy, and also in his own way gloriously 
happy. His wife — you have not seen his wife — ^hon- 
oured him as a king of men. Willatopy, his only 
son, worshipped him as a god. You may perhaps 
have noticed how Willatopy, although but twelve 
years old when his father died, quotes his lightest 
saying as the last word in human or divine wis- 
dom? ” 

Madame nodded. 

I was my friend’s executor, and, in my humble 
way, have tried to be a guardian to Willatopy. I 
love the boy for his father’s sake and his own sake. 
He is a good boy. His courage has the quality of 
tempered steel: he is honest and generous. He 
comes here about once a month, draws a pound or 
two in silver from me, buys gear for his yawl and 
a few delicacies for his family — they all have a 
queer passion for sardines and tinned tongue — spicks 
up some beads for his brown girls, and then disap- 
pears. He does not drink; he has not, I believe, 
ever tasted alcohol. His relations with brown girls 
are those customary in the Straits. Here, Madame, 
boys and girls follow their inclinations, but they 
are free from the vices of the white races. The un- 
married flit from flower to flower, but those who are 
married — though wedded by the sketchiest of na- 
tive ceremonial — are faithful to one another with a 
rigidity unknown in Europe or America. All the 
vices and all the diseases in these islands are the 
gift of the white man. I have always feared for 
Willatopy, and now your coming fills me with dread 


FATHER AND SON 


101 


for him. White and brown blood form a bad mix- 
ture — an explosive mixture. A mixture unstable 
as nitro-glycerine. So long as Willie remains 
brown, and follows the precepts of his father, he 
will be safe and happy. But let him incline by ever 
so little towards the white side of him, let him once 
awaken to a taste for wine or whisky, and become 
conscious of the seductions of white women — and 
Willatopy will be a lost soul. Here in my desk lies 
the will of my friend Toppys and — other papers. 
I see the danger which threatens Willatopy, and I 
tremble. Take your yacht away, Madame Gilbert, 
and trouble the boy no more.” 

I have no wish, we have no wish, that Willa- 
topy should leave the Torres Straits, least of all 
that he should go to England. But he interests me 
extremely, and I would see more of him and of his 
home before we go away. It will be but for a few 
weeks, Mr. Grant, and all that while I will be his 
zealous guardian. Besides myself there is only one 
white woman in the yacht and she is my maid and 
at my strict orders. I can appreciate the danger 
of alcohol for him, but surely a boy like Willatopy 
— iwhose eyes are blue as the sky at dawn — has al- 
ready experienced the seductions of sex? ” 

No,” emphatically declared Robert Grant. 

Where there are no clothes there is no curiosity, 
and where there is no conscious shame, there is no 
viciousness. Willatopy in the hands of an un- 
scruplous white woman would become a devil. 
Drink and debased white women are the man-eating 
tigers in the path of his life ; if they fall upon Willa- 
topy they will devour him. Go back to your yacht, 


102 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Madame Gilbert, turn her bead towards England, 
and trouble ns no more.” 

Bereft of our accomplished pilot we should be 
ashore within the hour,” quoth Madame slyly. 

The boy^s a wonder,” mused Grant. He ar- 
rives and conquers without an effort. He has bound 
you to him by his skill in pilotage, and now, I sup- 
pose, you will make him lead you to his island, 
happy no longer. The curses of the white man will 
descend upon it and upon him. Drink and Lust. 
... You will not have known the father of Willa- 
topy; he was before your time. In the eyes of the 
world he was mad ; in all eyes, perhaps, except my 
own. He gave up his home in England, he married 
a Hula girl out of New Guinea, and he settled upon 
Tops Island. All these evidences of rank insanity 
are known to you ; to me alone is known an incident 
which would class Will Toppys among the dodder- 
ing idiots. When I first heard of it from the man’s 
own lips I was staggered. I am a Scot and a banker 
and a materialist. I should not have done what he 
did; I would have realised a quick fortune, and 
dashed home to bonny Scotland. I do not live on 
this filthy island for fun. You cannot conceive, 
Madame, how after thirty years of the tropics I 
ache for a bitter Scots haar. But Will Toppys was 
true to himself; he rejected the lure of the millions 
as he had rejected that of the thousands and the 
hundreds. During the wanderings of Will Toppys 
some twenty years ago, when first he went to New 
Guinea, he came across an old Australian gold 
hunter, one of the original gang who in the fifties 
had staked out claims and washed gravel for gold 
dust in the river beds beyond Balaarat. This old 


FATHER AND SON 


103 


fellow had found gold in a creek in New Guinea, 
and was washing for dust in the old, old patient 
fashion when Toppys discovered him. The old man 
was unhappy. He had, it is true, found gold in 
paying quantities, but mixed with the gold was 
some dark, heavy obtrusive substance which marred 
the serenity of his daily operations. The gold 
would not wash clear by itself. Always it was 
mixed with this miserable stuff which had to be 
painfully separated from it. The old man showed 
Toppys some of it; he had kept a little under his 
bunk, but had thrown the rest away. Neither 
Toppys nor the digger knew anything of the stuff 
except that it was a nuisance. But Toppys took a 
pinch or two away with him in an envelope. His 
curiosity was so far stimulated that he despatched 
the envelope to the Assay Office at Brisbane, and 
asked for particulars of identity. Years afterwards 
he showed me the reply which came to him from the 
Assay Office. The dark, obtrusive, heavy metal, 
which the old digger had been throwing away be- 
cause it interfered with the purity of his gold dust, 
was one of the iridium family, of great commercial 
importance, and was valued at fifty pounds sterling 
an ounce. Fifty pounds an ounce ! By comparison 
the gold dust was mere dross. You will inquire, as 
I did, what course William Toppys took. Many 
men, who pass for honest, would have persuaded the 
old man to sell his claim for some derisory pittance 
and have stolen the fruits of his discovery. Others 
would have offered to help the old man at his gold 
washing and have taken their payment in osmirid- 
ium. Others again would have slain the discoverer. 
Toppys did none of these things. He went to the 


104 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


old digger^s hut to acquaint him with the gift which 
God had sent, and found that, while he waited, God 
had vouchsafed another and a greater boon. The 
old man lay in his bunk dead. Toppys buried him 
there among the wealth of which he had never 
learned the value — and went away. The man was 
true to himself. He had come to the Torres Straits 
to live the simple native life, and he would not look 
back for all the riches of New Guinea at fifty 
pounds an ounce. And he never disclosed to any- 
one, even to me, the secret of the deposits. They 
were somewhere on the south coast, that was all 
that he would tell. His reason was like himself, 
sanely mad. God, who had hidden those treasures 
for millions of years, had disclosed them to two men 
— one who was dead, and the other who was as good 
as dead. Toppys accepted the revelation as a Di- 
vine test of his sincerity, and it would, in his eyes, 
have been sacrilege to have given away or sold the 
knowledge. I admit,” concluded Grant rather sav- 
agely, “ that if I could have won the secret from 
him, I would have scratted up the blessed stuff with 
my finger nails. Fifty pounds an ounce! More 
than a million pounds a ton. From his own point 
of view Will Toppys was right in rejecting the use- 
less wealth, but I still think that he might have 
given me the tip.” 

I must tell that story to Alexander,’^ said Ma- 
dame, if only to enjoy his wri things. Fifty pounds 
the ounce. Poor Mr. Grant and poor Alexander. 
Though one does not need to be a Scot to jump at 
fifty pounds an ounce. I could do a bit of scratch- 
ing at that price with my own lily hands.’^ 

" That was William Toppys, the father* of JVilla- 


FATHER AND SON 


105 


topy. Though how that serene and unworldly soul 
came to inhabit the body of an ancient and common- 
place Toppys passes my poor comprehension. 
Willatopy, who worshipped his father as a god, is 
not a bit like him in temperament. He reminds me 
sometimes curiously of an English public school 
boy. He has the typically English unintellectual 
love of life. There is nothing of the anchorite about 
him. He enjoys every minute of his life. His viril- 
ity and extraordinary endurance are Melanesian. 
Do you know how William Toppys died when that 
boy of his was twelve years old? No? Let me tell 
you, and perhaps my story of the son will be as illu- 
minating as my story of the father. Toppys loved 
his son, though he could have wished him to have 
been less dark. The sisters are almost white, not 
darker in skin than many southern Europeans. 
They wear nothing but the native petticoats, so that 
one has full opportunity of inspecting their colour. 
Willatopy is black beside them. Toppys and his 
son were always about in their yawl, which the 
father brought out from England. It is fully 
decked and a fine seaboat. They went everywhere in 
it, and cared nothing for the storms or the currents 
which make our navigation so difficult and danger- 
ous. It was in March of 1912 that William Toppys 
was killed, accidentally killed, in the presence of 
Willatopy.” 

Killed ! ” exclaimed Madame. I did not know 
that.” 

Yes, killed. I have the particulars here in my 
drawer with the — the other papers. Toppys and 
the boy were cruising to the north and one evening 
at sunset had let go their anchor in the lee of a wide 


106 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


coral garden. It was the season of monsoon, when 
storms and rain sweep down from the north-west. 
The wind blows sometimes with hurricane velocity. 
We have a very brief twilight; at one rush comes 
the dark, or almost. The anchor had gone down in 
fifteen feet of water on the edge of the coral, and 
Toppys had gone forward to lower the sails. Some- 
how, I don’t know how, his feet became entangled, 
and. he pitched overboard. This was nothing in it- 
self. The yawl has no more than two inches of rail, 
and both father and son frequently went overboard 
without intention. Willatopy svdms like a seal, 
and Toppys was quite at home in the water. Willa- 
topy, when he heard the splash, ran forward, cast 
off the halliard of the mainsail, and threw the bight 
over the rail. It was difficult to climb back with- 
out a line. He saw his father come to the surface, 
gasp, roll over, and sink again, leaving a trail of 
blood in the sea. As he fell, Toppys must have 
struck his head against a spur of coral, and when 
he gasped must have filled his lungs with water. 
He sank like a stone to the bottom. It was after 
sunset, and rapidly growing dark. Willatopy, the 
small boy of twelve, dived at once and sought for 
the heavy man of twelve stone on the floor fifteen 
feet below. It was already dark below, and quite 
a minute passed before Willatopy got his hand un- 
der his father’s arm and struck up to the surface. 
Then he found himself six feet from the yawl, and 
drifting past her. There followed a furious strug- 
gle. The small boy, hopelessly overweighted, fought 
every inch of the distance, struggled across those 
interminable two yards, and just got his fingers on 
the counter as the current carried him away. If 


FATHER AND SON 


107 


he had missed his last grab at the rail, Willatopy 
could never have swum back bearing his father's 
body, and he would never have let go. He is Melan- 
esian in muscle and skin, but his heart is that of an 
English bulldog. The boy’s fingers gripped the rail, 
he hung at arm’s length, and with the other arm he 
grappled to him the man whom he worshipped as 
a god. Picture to yourself the situation. The night 
had fallen, the wind was soughing overhead, and 
threatening a gale, the tide was swirling past the 
coral and dragging at Willatopy’s burden — and the 
mainsail halliard, by which alone he could essay to 
regain the yawl, was more than fifteen feet distant 
toward the bows. And Willatopy was twelve years 
old, and his father weighed twelve stone. I want 
you to get all these details clear before you, Ma- 
dame. An English boy could never have done what 
Willatopy did then, and afterwards. He would 
have possessed the heart but not the lithe enduring 
strength nor the profound sea knowledge. Willa- 
topy pulled himself in towards the boat, and her 
side inclined slightly towards him. Then he gave 
the leap and kick of a dolphin, and shifted his grip 
from the counter to the side rail. By a succes- 
sion of kicks and leaps he worked his way forward 
inch by inch, foot by foot. He does not know how 
long it took him to reach the halliard, which trailed 
in the water. He says it was hours, but Willatopy 
has vague ideas of time. At last he arrived. He 
seized the line and swung clear. Treading water 
he passed the line under his father’s arms, and made 
sure that when his own support was withdrawn, 
the man’s head would be clear of the water. All 
through that desperate, one-armed progress from 


108 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


the stem to the midships of the yawl Willatopy 
had never once loosened his grip upon his father, 
nor allowed the dear drooping head to sink under 
water. Then when his father had been securely 
tied, Willatopy worked forward to the anchor chain 
and climbed on board by the bowsprit. He was up 
and hauling in an instant. The yawl inclined more 
and more as the heavy body came in over the rail, 
but the boy took a grip on the deck with his naked 
toes, and hauled more vigorously than ever. Now 
was the beloved body stretched at last upon the 
deck. The boy felt a long gash on his father’s head, 
and could not distinguish a sign of life. There was 
no breath that he could perceive in the limp sodden 
body. The Hula fishers of New Guinea have their 
own methods of restoring the apparently drowned. 
Willatopy applied them. He also remembered his 
father’s lessons and turned them to account, work- 
ing the dead arms up and down to induce respira- 
tion. It was dark as a wolf’s mouth; Willatopy 
had to work by touch and ear. The time passed, 
how long I do not know, and without pause for rest 
or food the boy worked on. He went on until the 
grey dawn found him still working. And then he 
knew that his father was dead. The blue Toppys 
eyes were cold and sightless. The body which 
Willatopy had rubbed and kneaded all though the 
night was becoming fixed in the rigor of death. 
Willatopy rose up and went below. He filled him- 
self vigorously with food, thinking hard all the time 
of a method by which he might transfer his father 
from the exposed deck to the little bunk which had 
been his bed at sea. He felt very lonely. His white 
god had withdrawn its presence; no longer would 


FATHER AND SON 


109 


tHe two, father and son, sail the seas together. In 
the ordinary sense, I do not think that Willatopy 
grieved at all. He was too busy. After a vigorous 
attempt he was obliged to leave the body on the 
deck. His strength was not equal to the work of 
transfer to the cabin, but he did what he could. 
He lashed the body so that it could not be disturbed 
by the rough movements of the yawl, or by the wash- 
ing of heavy seas. Then he set the sails, hauled 
up the anchor, and laid a course for home. The dis- 
aster had occurred some fifty miles to the north of 
Tops Island. But three days passed before a small 
boy, grey with exhaustion and the continual beat- 
ing upon his naked body of salt sea foam, sailed a 
yawl, with the corpse of his father lashed to the 
deck, into the harbour of Murray Island thirty 
miles to the south. 

Of those three days Willatopy can tell little. 
He had been caught in a furious gale and blown out 
into the Gulf, driving before it with no sails set ex- 
cept the small jib. Soon after leaving the fatal an- 
chorage, where Toppys had been killed, Willatopy’s 
eye for weather had told him to strip the yawl of 
her canvas, and she had come down, as it were, from 
full dress to a loin cloth before the tempest burst. 
For twenty-four hours — as Willie put it, ‘ from sun 
to sun ’ — he had sat by the tiller without food or 
sleep. And the previous night had been sleepless, 
too. Then the wind fell, but the waves ran high 
under the eternal Pacific swell. By lashing the 
tiller for a few minutes at a time the boy was able 
to take food, but sleep was still denied to him. He 
came back in long reaches, steering by the sun, for 
he had been blown far from familiar waters. He 


110 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


was a long way to the south of Tops Island, and 
east of the Great Barrier itself, so that when he 
sighted land after two whole days in the open, it 
was a great unknown, unfriendly reef within which 
the passages were narrow and tortuous. Still he 
worked his way through, and getting under shelter 
of a strange island, let go his anchor and slept. I do 
not think that he could have held out but for that 
God-given sleep. And so after yet another day he 
arrived in Murray Island. They took his father^s 
body and would have buried it there, but Willa- 
topy forbade. He was all right, he said, and going 
on home, but for the moment he was tired, and 
wanted to lie up among friends. So the good souls 
of Murray Island made a rough coffin, and laid 
Toppys upon that bunk in the little cabin where 
he had so often slept. Willatopy slept peacefully 
on the opposite bunk. He did not shrink from his 
father’s body as an English boy w’ould have done; 
he was happy in the thought that his god was still 
with him. And then, still alone, that boy of twelve 
sailed homewards with his father’s corpse. He 
laughed when assistance was offered, and scorned 
companionship. ‘ Now that my father is dead I will 
sail his yawl,’ said he. ‘No one understands her 
except him and me.’ Will Toppys is buried near 
the hut where he had lived with his wife and chil- 
dren. The family buried him themselves, and re- 
peated over his body the prayers which the dead 
man had taught them. That is how William Toppys 
died, and that is how his son, a little boy of twelve 
years old, brought the father home.” 

Madame Gilbert’s eyes were full of tears, and 
she did not speak for a few minutes. 


FATHER AND SON 


111 


“He comes of good stock,” said slie at last. 
“ Blood always tells.” 

“ Good stock,” assented Grant, “ on both sides of 
the house. If his father was a Toppys of Devon, 
his mother is a Hula of New Guinea. Willatopy 
is grit all though.” 

“ I am very very much obliged to you,” said Ma- 
dame. “ I understand now something of the father 
and more of the son. Believe me I wish Willatopy 
nothing that is not good.” 

“ Then,” said Grant very seriously, “ if you mean 
him nothing except good you will sail away from 
the Torres Straits and trouble him no more.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


TOPS ISLAND 

'X'HREE days later at noon the Humming Top, 
with thick oily smoke pouring from her fun- 
nel, was getting up steam and awaiting her pilot. 
Alexander Ewing, a grim happy Ewing, was down 
in the engine-room. For days he had been stimu- 
lating the hunger of a market by exiguous sales at 
the most appalling of prices; when money failed 
he graciously accepted pearl — at his own valuation. 
Reflecting now upon his work, he saw that it had 
been very good. And since the financial risk had 
been laid to account of Sir John Toppys and all the 
profits were divisible between himself and Ching, 
no thought of dividends payable to the Idle Rich 
obtruded to mar his pure satisfaction. He had be- 
come, by exercise of his own brains, a profiteer 
and a capeetalist — and the world was a very plea- 
sant place. But though conscious of well-doing, his 
great mind had been for a while slightly disturbed 
by two exasperating thoughts. In a moment of 
expansive generosity, while receiving the congratu- 
lations of Madame upon his commercial abilities, 
he had presented her with a large pearl. He did 
not grudge a present to one whom he loved — and in 
his queer fashion he really loved Madame Gilbert 
— but it had been an unnecessarily large pearl. A 
smaller one would have earned for him as sweet a 
112 


TOPS ISLAND 


113 


smile of thanks. Alexander hated an over-payment. 
And he never could forget that five per cent, for the 
officers and men which Madame had wrung from 
his grip. Even as he rejoiced in his gains, and 
counted them over in his recollection, that five per 
cent. — a whole shilling in every pound sterling — 
worried him dreadfully. It was as bad as an in- 
come tax. He wondered how Madame would take 
a proposal that some charge under the head of 

management expenses ” should be debited against 
that five per cent. If a labourer were worthy of 
reward for his bodily toil, surely Alexander Ewing 
should be conceded some adequate remuneration for 
the wor-r-k of his br-r-ains. 

And while he refiected upon the files which al- 
ways will defile the most perfect human ointment, 
an inspiration came to him. Only really great busi- 
ness minds are favoured in this way. He saw that 
he might make good the cost of Madame’s exces- 
sively large pearl, and recover no small portion of 
that scandalous five per cent., by judicious wangling 
of the accounts. It was an operation which prom- 
ised almost infinite possibilities, a simple operation 
seeing that no one except himself had any grasp of 
the true principles of finance. A grievous load 
lifted from his mind. God was in His Heaven — 
luckily a long way off — and all was right with the 
world. Human happiness is so rare that one loves 
to contemplate it unalloyed. I figure to myself 
Alexander Ewing, in his engine-room, grimly and 
perfectly happy. 

It was at slack water, at the moment when the 
tide turning began to run eastwards through the 
Straits, that Willatopy^s yawl hove in sight, and 


114 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


he bore down in his usual impetuous style. He had 
not come before, he explained to the gloomy Skip- 
per, because it was absurd to waste steam by forc- 
ing the yacht against a five or six knot current. AlU 
hour or two of delay had turned that current to 
one of equal velocity in the Humming Top^s favour, 
and he was prepared forthwith to make up, and 
more than make up, for the apparent procrastina- 
tion. Ching, who was sick of Thursday Island, and 
had wanted to get away at daybreak whatever might 
have been the state of the tide, was obliged to ad- 
mit the force of so seamanlike an explanation, but 
he did not love the Moor ” any better for present- 
ing it. In his view a coloured man’s place was the 
stokehole, not the bridge, and most certainly not the 
cabin. He detested the favour which Willatopy had 
gained on board the Humming Top and scorned his 
pretensions to be a member of the House of Toppys. 
When the fathers have for generations played the 
merry three-legged game — Plymouth, Slave Coast, 
West Indies, Plymouth — a black skin remains a cov- 
ering for merchandise in the eyes of the children, 
even in the Twentieth Century. 

Fully a hundred miles interposed between Thurs- 
day Island and the “ miles and miles of shore and 
forest” which were the home of Willatopy. Be- 
tween lay a labyrinth of coral, for the most part un- 
charted, of which he alone in the yacht had the se- 
cret. Ching might call him a Moor and detest his 
presence on the sacred bridge, but Ching knew, bet- 
ter perhaps than anyone else, that the safety of 
yacht and of all who sailed therein rested in the 
brown hands of the half-caste boy. By unchallenge- 
able right, Willatopy conned the ship while her law- 


TOPS ISLAND 


115 


ful commander glowered below in the chart-room. 
If he had not put the yacht aground away yonder 
on the fringes of the Warrior Reef, Ching would 
still have believed in his own capacity, somehow by 
rule of thumb and lead, to navigate his own vessel. 
Now he knew that he couldn’t, and that Willatopy 
could, but he grudged the boy the skill which was 
denied to himself. It was very absurd, and I am 
really rather ashamed of my compatriot of Devon. 
No seaman can have precise local knowledge of all 
waters everywhere. Ching would have subordinated 
himself without a murmur to an authorised pilot in 
the Thames or the Scheldt. What irked him was to 
play second fiddle before Madame Gilbert to a 
wholly unauthorised Moor. It was no consolation 
to Ching to know, as did everyone else in the yacht, 
that Willatopy had swum in these Straits before he 
could walk, and had sailed them before he could 
talk. They were his own back yard, and there was 
nothing specially commendable in the precision of 
his acquaintance with them. He had, it is true, 
more than a mere accumulation of local knowledge ; 
he had a sure sea instinct. But that came to him 
by inheritance on both sides oif the house. Daily 
habit, inspired by instinct, had made him the ideal 
pilot whom Ching should have hugged to his bosom 
on the bridge instead of cursing under his feet in 
the chart-room. But it was all the same to Willa- 
topy. He had never been in sole charge of a big 
steamer before, and he joyously played with the 
yacht as any boy would. He loved to drive her at 
full speed, to tickle her sensitive steam steering 
gear with his pretty little telegraph, and to watch 
the whole length of her sweep round corners where 


116 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


a fractional misjudgment would have ripped the 
bilge keels off her frames. 

Alexander Ewing highly approved of the methods 
of Willatopy. He hated what he called backing and 
filling. He liked his engines to be kept running at 
a sound steady speed, and not to be perpetually 
bothered with stopping and reversing and forcing 
the propellers to make good the deficiencies of the 
rudder. With Willatopy in command, the Humming 
Top drove along as if coral reefs did not exist, and 
as if the deep water channels had been never less 
than a mile wide. He never ran into difficulties, 
because for him there were no difficulties. 

They lay up that night, and picking up the east- 
ward current again early in the morning, ramped 
up to Tops Island at a speed to which the cautious 
Ching had not yet become reconciled. Madame was 
on the boat deck watching the thickly wooded island 
rise up with the sun out of the sea. It was no low 
coral atoll, but a fine volcanic lump of basalt tow- 
ering six hundred feet out of the water, and clothed 
with green woods up to the summits of the hills. 
As the yacht approached the shores she saw a mul- 
titude of pretty little coves bounded by rocky head- 
lands and fringed with white coral sand. Here and 
there groves of cocoa-nut palms delicately skirted 
the sea edge, while patches of the devouring man- 
grove ran right into the salt water, and won back 
to the land wide stretches which the sea had covered. 
Madame had seen many islands in the Straits, but 
this Island of Tops came most near to the realisa- 
tion of her imaginative dreams of the South Seas. 
It was in truth an Island of Dreams, and Will 
Toppys, madman and saint, had chosen well when 


TOPS ISLAND 


117 


lie built his hut upon it, and pegged out his claim 
upon hundreds of acres of shore and woodland. To 
the north-east, as they slipped along the coast, 
appeared the entrance to a long narrow bay — 
described by Alexander as “ just a wee Scots loch 
— of which the whole line of shore to the left was 
owned by Willatopy. 

I do not know the dimensions of the Estate of 
Toppys. Willatopy’s ideas of space were as vague 
as his ideas of time — one w^as miles and miles, the 
other hours and hours — ^but from what Madame told 
me it must have run to a thousand acres at the least. 
There was more than a mile of shore to Willatopy’s 
front garden, and the natural park at the back — 
called by Alexander the policies — extended up the 
hillside for another mile or so. I don’t suppose 
that the Honourable William Toppys paid very 
much for it. Grant of Thursday Island, who has all 
his papers, would know. Madame, who is much 
more interested in people than in their possessions, 
never troubled to enquire about the property, and 
proved to be quite useless as an authority upon it. 
Alexander Ewing, with whom I had much intimate 
conversation before I ventured upon the details of 
this story, declared dogmatically at first that it was 
about twa squar-r-e miles.” On cross-examination 
he admitted that the policies ” had no ring fence, 
and that he had never explored their alleged bound- 
aries. Though I love to be particular, and refused 
to describe the Humming Top until Denny’s of 
Dumbarton had sent me a scale plan of her — ^which 
they very kindly and obligingly did — I have not 
troubled Mr. Kobert Grant. For one thing he is too 


118 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


far away, and for another — before I have done, the 
other reason will be clear to the discerning reader. 

The narrow bay, the “ wee Scots loch,” bit deep 
into Tops Island, and across it had been piled up by 
the mountain streams a bar of mud and sand, a low 
wave-swept barrier. Though the yacht could not 
cross the bar, she could lie safely within the en- 
trance to the bay, and under shelter from the pre- 
vailing trade wind — ^which at that season blew from 
the south-east, swelling up almost into a gale at 
midday and dying away to nothing shortly after 
sunset. The shore of the island was very steep, and 
Willatopy brought the yacht in to within a hundred 
yards of a thick clump of mangroves. He let go the 
bow anchor. 

“ The tide is now near the turn,” said he, and 
there is a rise of ten feet at high water. You had 
better run out another anchor seawards, and let 
her swing with the current.” 

‘^Thanks,” growled Ching, rudely. ‘^You can 
pilot me up the Straits, but you can’t teach me any- 
thing about the mooring of a ship.” 

Willatopy turned away, and descended to the 
boat deck. He inspected the twenty-two-foot life- 
boats with great care, and shook his head with 
emphasis. No good, no damn good,” said he. 

What is troubling you, Willie? ” asked Madame. 

Those fool boats,” grumbled he, have rudders. 
They are no good for the surf. Look,” he pointed 
to where half-a-mile from them the swell broke in 
huge curling rollers on the bar of Tops Island. 

One can’t hold a boat true in that surf with a bit 
of wood stuck on rudder pintles. If I took you in 
now when there is little water on the bar in a boat 


TOPS ISLAND 


119 


like that she would broach and roll over and over. 
And the sharks are watching there for the meal that 
they would get. If you don^t want to be food for 
sharks, Madame, you trust to Willatopy.” 

“ For days past,” said she, our lives have been 
in your hands, Willie, and you have not failed us. 
Show us what we should do.” 

■Will atopy beckoned to the second officer and ex- 
plained that he wanted the rudder to be unshipped 
from one of the lifeboats and a strong eye of rope 
lashed to the top of the sternpost. It was to take a 
steering sweep, and to be very, very strong. I 
take Madame in through the surf,” he added. 

“ The devil you do,” said the officer, gazing upon 
the huge foaming rollers, whose thunder as they 
broke upon the bar made conversation difficult. 

Will it not be safer to wait till high water? ” 

“ No,” returned Madame calmly. I go now — 
with Willatopy.” 

If you go I shall go too. Though it seems to me 
just foolishness. At high water it would be easy.” 

“ Yes,” assented Willatopy. Quite easy. There 
is a channel inshore which you could pass in the 
motor boat. It is only now at low water that the 
surf breaks heavily like that.” 

No,” repeated Madame firmly. Where Willa- 
topy leads, I follow. Make ready and be quick 
about it.” 

The second officer lashed on the eye of rope him- 
self, and tested carefully the fitting of the longest 
sweep that he could find. He had pledged himself 
to share Madame’s risks, but he was not going to 
take more chances than he could help. When he 


120 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


had finished the job, Willatopy passed it as very 
good. 

I conld steer you over the bar of the Fly River 
with that,” said he, and the surf up north is not 
like those little breakers.” 

The “ little breakers ” were rearing their heads 
fifteen or twenty feet above the sea level, and crash- 
ing down in a welter of foam which stretched as 
far into the bay as they could see. The little 
breakers w^ere big enough for Madame and the 
second officer, though Willatopy made light of 
them. 

The officer climbed into the boat, in which six 
sailors stood ready to swing out and lower. 
Madame was about to follow when Willie checked 
her. He looked with disapproval at her graceful 
white muslin dress and shook his frizzy head. 

It will be very wet,” said he. I go like this.” 

In a moment the shirt and trousers of civilisa- 
tion dropped from him, and he stood up a bare, 
naked savage. When Roger Gatepath first met 
Willatopy he had feathers in his hair and a boot- 
lace about his middle; now Madame beheld him 
without either the feathers or the bootlace. 

Whew ! ” whistled the second officer. 

I cannot quite follow your admirable example,” 
said Madame, smiling, but if you will wait a mo- 
ment I will dress the part of surf bather.” 

She ran down to her cabin, whipped off her 
clothes, wriggled into a blue silk bathing dress, and 
above it buckled a light linen trench coat. In this 
garb she did not mind how much water came 
aboard. Indeed afterwards the bathing dress and 


TOPS ISLAND 


121 


the trench coat became her standard wear while 
braving the surf of the Islands. 

Will this do, Willie? ’’ asked Madame upon her 
return to the deck. 

He surveyed her gravely. My sisters would 
have thrown off their petticoats.’’ 

But I am not your sister,” answered Madame, 
climbing into the boat. 

Willatopy followed, and was observed to tuck 
the discarded shirt and trousers carefully under the 
stern sheets. He had wrapped them up in a bit of 
sea cloth. 

The boat was swung out and lowered, and the 
six sailors bent to their oars. Willatopy standing 
upright on a thwart firmly grasped the eighteen- 
foot sweep, and fiicked the boat this way and that 
to test her response to his will. He appeared to be 
satisfied, for his lips opened in a grin of sheer boy- 
ish enjoyment. 

Give way,” cried Willatopy. 

Madame Gilbert, thorough in all that she under- 
took, had gone right forward, and, seated firmly, 
gripped a thwart with both hands. She was sure 
that Willatopy would hold the boat true in the 
surf, but she felt some small apprehension lest she 
might herself be pitched out into the mouths of those 
hungry waiting sharks. At about a hundred yards 
from the bar, Willatopy cried to the men to hold 
up the boat and await his orders. He was watch- 
ing for the big roller which comes at fairly regu- 
lar intervals, and which was the one to sweep them 
forward on the furious race through the surf. 

Now,” he roared, and the lifeboat rushed upon 
the bar. 


122 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Madame felt her lift, lift, lift until the boat 
seemed to be poised upon a steep swiftly moving 
roof edge. She looked forward into the depths of 
an enormous hollow; she looked back to where 
Willatopy stood, naked as when he was born, his 
hands frozen upon the big sweep, the happy grin 
upon his joyful face. Time stood still. They were 
travelling at a full twenty knots, but it seemed ages 
before the lift of the boat ceased, and her bows fell 
to the level. 

^^Oars,” cried Willatopy, and the men tossed 
them inboard. 

The bows, with Madame clinging to her thwart, 
toppled steeply forward. The stern rose and rose 
until Willatopy, standing upright, and clutching the 
edge of the thwart with his bare, prehensile toes, 
towered over Madame’s wet head. The surf all 
around boiled and roared and foamed over the gun- 
wale. Madame low down got the worst of it, and 
wished that she had left that drenched linen coat 
in her cabin. The bathing dress was enough for 
decency, and was meant to be wetted. Down the 
hill of foaming water they raced faster, much faster, 
than they had climbed it, and always the line held 
true. Willatopy was always ready. He had played 
the game so often that his firmly planted swaying 
body met every jerk and strain of the struggling 
lifeboat, as if he knew exactly when to expect those 
desperate efforts to broach and roll over which are 
the obsession of boats in surf. At the foot of the 
hill of water Willatopy called again, and the men 
again obeyed promptly, falling to their oars, and 
driving the heavy boat down the bay. For half a 
mile they ran, still tossing through broken water. 


TOPS ISLAND 


123 


and Madame, picking the strands of copper hair out 
of her eyes, looked out towards the sandy beach 
towards which Willatopy was steering. He drove 
the boat right up on the sand, splashed over the 
side, and ran shouting up the beach. Instantly a 
pale brown figure emerged from the woods, another 
followed, and Willie was in the arms of two girls, 
who, save for their banana leaf petticoats, were as 
bare-skinned as himself. With an arm about the 
waist of each he marched off towards his home 
amid the trees. Madame was again forgotten. She, 
that proud beautiful white woman, was becoming 
used to being forgotten. 

But presently Willatopy came back, and with him 
walked his mother, the Hula woman of Bulaa whom 
the Hon. William Toppys had made his lawful wife. 
Madame advancing looked at her curiously. 
Although the half -blooded daughters wore nothing 
but the native petticoats, the mother was clad in a 
white European blouse and skirt of cotton. She 
may have put them on for the dignity of the Family, 
but Madame thinks that she always went clothed. 

This is my mother,” said Willatopy proudly. 
Madame held out her hands, and the native woman 
came to her, shyly at first, and then eagerly as she 
drew courage from the sweet irresistible smile of 
welcome on the most beautiful face in the world. 
She took both Madame’s hands and knelt at her 
feet. 

“ No,” said Madame Gilbert. Here,” and lift- 
ing the poor shy, humble creature in her strong 
arms, she took her to the wet trench coat and kissed 
her on both cheeks. 

And that is how Madame Gilbert came to Tops 


124 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

Island. One may well ask what Sir John Toppys, 
Baronet of Wigan, the entirely neglected paymaster 
of Madame’s most expensive expedition, would have 
thought of that pretty little scene. 


CHAPTER IX 


.WILLATOPY : SPORTSMAN 

g ETWEEN the arrival of Madame Gilbert at 
Tops Island and the coming of the Hedge 
Lawyer there interposed three or four brief weeks 
of happiness. Not for years had Madame been so 
purely and childishly happy. She had sailed away 
from that man-destroying white civilisation which 
during four desperate years of savagery had torn 
her own world into rags; she had descended upon 
an island where the joy of life reigned as King, and 
death had no terrors. From a Europe worn out by 
passion, a Europe grown old and weary and cor- 
rupt, she had flown back, as it were, to the spark- 
ling morning of free, joyous human life. And with 
quick sympathy she revelled in her new experiences. 

The Humming Top was moored in shelter hard 
by the shore of Tops Island where the tide rose and 
fell ten feet, and the Pacific swell rolled continu- 
ously. And with it the yacht rolled, too, continu- 
ously in spite of her sturdy bilge keels. She was 
long and narrow and of light draught, she was built 
for speed in the open sea, not for threading the 
labyrinths of coral reefs or for lying up indefinitely 
in the lee of mangrove swamps. It took all the 
superb skill of a Willatopy to navigate her in safety 
through the channels of the Coral Sea, but not even 
the stomach of Willatopy, sound though it was by 
125 


126 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


practice and inheritance, would have relished the 
perpetual roll of the Mumming Top at anchor. Ma- 
dame cleared out of her most comfortable sea home, 
and took with her Marie, who had all the French- 
woman's hatred of uneasy salt water. Sir John 
Toppys, at a hint from Madame months before, had 
purchased three large tents of the Thames pattern, 
oblong in shape, and with a wide air space between 
walls and roof. These tents were borne ashore and 
pitched in an agreeable clearing about a quarter of 
a mile from Willatopy^s home. Madame desired 
privacy for herself, and had no wish to intrude upon 
that of the Family of Toppys. One tent was 
equipped for the use of Madame and Marie, a sec- 
ond contained the gear of a cook and steward, and 
the third was set aside for any of the officers or 
men who might be assigned to Madame as her shore 
escort. There were a score or more of native fami- 
lies on the island, and both Ching and Ewing set 
their faces against leaving Madame Gilbert un- 
guarded in their midst. Ching hinted that head 
hunting, though a dying industry in the Straits, 
might be capable of revival under severe provoca- 
tion. And Ewing, as he contemplated Madame’s 
gorgeous copper mane shining in coils upon her 
bonny head, hinted that the provocation to secure 
so unique a specimen might prove irresistible. Ma- 
dame laughed and flicked at them both the muzzle 
of her Web ley automatic. 

I am a perfect shot,” quoth she, and if you 
will be reassured, I will promise to keep my gun 
ever beside my virtuous couch.” But in spite of 
Madame’s skill in shooting — of which she gave an 
impressive demonstration on the boat deck — ^they 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


127 


insisted upon the necessity for an escort. I suspect 
that neither Ching nor Ewing could endure a long 
separation from their Madame Gilbert, and that 
both senior and junior officers welcomed a few days 
of respite from the ever restless Humming Top, 
There was never any lack of volunteers for the duty 
of furnishing the escort and of beguiling the ample 
leisure of the capacious-hearted Marie Lambert. 

“Profiteering has solid advantages,” observed 
Madame to me, “ for those who draw upon its un- 
fathomable resources of ill-gotten wealth. That 
dear old John Toppys of Wigan said nothing to me 
at the time, but it appeared that he dredged Lon- 
don and Southampton for the latest and most lux- 
urious of camp equipment. Our tents had floor 
boards covered with thick rubber, and strewn with 
extravagantly costly rugs. There were beds with 
the springiest of mattresses, adjustable rest chairs, 
dressing tables, and the dinkiest of toilet apparatus. 
Unbeknownst, as Ching expressed it — Sir John had 
laid down for my use a camp toilet service in solid 
silver — and with silver at famine prices! — and had^, 
stuck in a card requesting me to honour it with 
my gracious acceptance, for keeps. You see, I had 
told him that I was a forlorn widow ! He had not 
overlooked equipment for my maid. Every con- 
ceivable device for cooking and serving food in 
camp had been thought of and provided, including 
Primus stoves, and the men’s tent — though less like 
a bower of Venus than my own — ^was good enough 
for anyone below the exalted standing of a goddess. 
Even Ching and Ewing, who had managed to de- 
cide in their wise heads that I was not Sir John 
Toppys’ wayward mistress, opened their eyes at his 


128 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


lavish provision for my comfort. When be saw his 
own tent, Alexander became, if possible, more con- 
vinced a business man than ever. ‘Wealth is 
power,’ said he gravely, ‘ even in a desert island. I 
have done no so badly with the dopes and the 
legitimate trade, but I must do a power of robbery 
yet before I can count dollars with Sir John 
Toppys.’ We camped out on Tops Island, but there 
was not much of roughing it about Sir John’s no- 
tions of camp life.” 

Madame had won the heart of the Widow Toppys 
when as a beautiful white stranger she had clasped 
the little creature to the bosom of her wet trench 
coat, and she speedily gained also the hearts of the 
two “ useless daughters,” scorned by Roger Gate- 
path. They were twins, very light in colour, aged 
about sixteen. Their names, as locally rendered, 
were Joytopy and Crytopy. Queer names. Mrs. 
Toppys, who spoke an English of her own in the 
halting accent to which the middle-aged Roger 
Gatepath had lingered to listen, explained that one 
of the girls in her early infancy had been the most 
joyous, smiling angel that ever came down from 
Heaven. The other twin had howled unceasingly. 
The Hon. William Toppys had called one Joy and 
the other Cry, and had dug up real names which 
would suggest the infantile characteristics. The 
girls had been christened Joyce and Chrystal, but 
Joytopy and Crytopy they had always vremained. 
When Madame met them there was much bubbling 
joy and little cry about either of them. They 
frisked about in their short voluminous petticoats 
of stripped banana leaf, wearing bright beads round 
their necks, and short-lived tropical flowers in their 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


129 


dusky hair. The girls were not pretty by Euro- 
pean standards, and the blue eyes of Toppys had 
passed them by. But there was a glow of splendid 
health on their pale brown skin, and the lithe grace 
of free tropical creatures about their fully devel- 
oped figures. 

These girls had never worn European clothes. 
Will Toppys, true to his theory that the mystery of 
woman, which has played so devastating a role in 
human history, is due to the seduction of clothes, 
always insisted that his daughters should wear the 
native petticoats. They were enough for decency, 
said he, but not enough to excite the smallest curi- 
osity. Especially as the native girls, amphibious as 
their men folk, always stripped bare when plunging 
into the sea. But though Joy and Cry had never 
worn, never even seen, the contents of a European 
draper’s shop, they showed the most fascinated in- 
terest in the toilet fripperies of Madame Gilbert. 
It was some little time before she could induce them 
to enter her tent. To them it suggested a trap of 
canvas of which one pulled the string and smoth- 
ered the incautious entrant. But gradually she 
won their confidence. With instinctive courtesy 
they never would approach her dwelling unless by 
direct invitation, and when within moved about 
gravely and spoke seldom. Madame to them was a 
remote royal personage. The silver toilet service 
did not move them — ^thinking that silver was always 
money, they called the precious metal bright tin — 
and the Persian rugs were an encumbrance to the 
feet. They hinted also that the floor coverings and 
hangings would in time prove a happy hunting 
ground for insects and other vermin of the woods. 


130 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


But when one day Madame opened a trunk and 
spread before their astonished eyes the glories of 
her underwear, they instantly fell down and wor- 
shipped. They had never seen such garments, they 
had not the slightest notion of how to put them on, 
yet the beautiful texture and soft feel of the femi- 
nine things bowled them over instantly. Perhaps 
it was the instinct of clothes in their white blood 
bursting forth; perhaps it was some deeper, more 
universal, instinct which makes women of all races 
kin. I donT know. But Madame assures me, and 
I believe her, that at the first sight and touch of 
her things,” Joy and Cry bowed their frizzy heads 
and did obeisance. They did more than that a few 
days later. Coming home late one afternoon after a 
turtle hunt with Willatopy, Madame found Joy and 
Cry in her tent posturing before the deeply inter- 
ested eyes of her maid Marie. The banana petti- 
coats lay neglected on the floor, where they had been 
tossed, and the girls were clad in French frillies 
with which Marie had invested them. Madame was 
angry, and the girls shrank away from her. In 
rapid, furious French, Madame scarified that 
thoughtless, warm-hearted maid of hers, and 
warned her to leave the girls alone as she had 
warned her to leave Willatopy alone. Robbed by 
Madame^s stem orders of the fascinating frillies, 
the girls resumed their own petticoats and sadly 
withdrew. The incident worried Madame not a 
little, and she spoke very plainly and seriously to 
Marie about it. It showed by how frail a tie these 
half -white feminine creatures were held to the sim- 
ple native habit of life which their white father had 
laid down for them. I had nearly written native 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


131 


life and customs/’ but checked when I remembered 
a discovery which Madame had made concerning 
these girls. Though they dressed like natives, and 
lived in all other respects the lives of natives, there 
was a subconscious force in their white blood which 
cut them off from familiar commerce with native 
boys. Girls and widows in the Torres Straits fol- 
low their inclinations, the girls of their hearts, the 
widows — one is told — more commonly of their ma- 
ture avarice. Married women, by immemorial and 
most potent custom, are chaste as Junos. But from 
this most universal of social customs these two 
girls, Joy and Cry, tacitly yet resolutely stood 
apart. Their own mother was astonished; she 
could not comprehend an abstinence which con- 
sorted so queerly, to her mind, with their vigorous 
healthy natures. Yet it was so, as she almost ^ar- 
fully afssured Madame. 

But surely you should be glad,” said Madame, 
puzzled and inclined towards laughter at the woe- 
ful visage of little Mrs. Toppys. “ Their father, 
had he lived, would have honoured his daughters 
for this — exclusiveness.” 

‘^But how will they ever claim husbands?” 
wailed the Hula woman from New Guinea. How 
ever can they ask a boy in marriage if already they 
are known to be so cold and unnatural? ” It is the 
woman who proposes marriage in the Straits, and 
the man who, after full consideration, gives or 
withholds his assent. 

Madame soothed the disconsolate widow, and 
went away smiling. Grant had declared that all 
the vices and diseases in the Torres Straits were the 
gift of the white man, but the instinctive aloofness 


182 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


of Joy and Cry revealed to the uncomprehending 
world of Tops Island that some hidden virtue after 
all sprang from the white strain in their blood. 

Madame, a hardy investigator and always frank 
in her dealings with mankind, tackled Willatopy, 
the brother of Joy and Cry, and the lover of num- 
berless brown girls whom his blue eyes vanquished 
at sight. 

My brown girls, they are nothing,’’ declared this 
easy-mannered Don Juan, “but Joy and Cry are 
the daughters of my father, the Great White Chief. 
They are not meat for the scum of Baru. The boys 
here, what are they but tillers of my garden when 
they work and whipping blocks for my stick when 
they don’t? I am rich, I do not work. These others 
I make work for me, and pay in white silver from 
my banker. They are the dirt under my feet, and 
if one of them drew near to Joy or Cry, to speak to 
them without my leave, I would let out his blood 
upon the sand, and would smoke Eis head over the 
fire in my cookhouse.” 

There was nothing of the modem democrat about 
Willatopy. 

As he imagined to himself, and declared to 
Madame, the fate of a native island suitor for the 
temporary favours of his sisters, he drew forth one 
of the deadly trench daggers which Alexander, a 
trader in hardware for the Islands, had given him 
in a moment of expansion. I beg the pardon of 
Alexander Ewing, man of business. He had sold 
two daggers to Willatopy at “ trade prices,” at a 
tremendous discount which had made them seem 
to him like gifts. 

These two trench daggers, which had attracted 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


133 


Willatopy as just the things for sharks/^ bring me 
to the display before my patient readers of Willa- 
topy the Sportsman. He was rich, he did no work. 
He paid reluctant impecunious native boys to cut 
his bananas and plant their rhizomes — even the 
bountiful banana needs some culture — to sow and 
reap vegetables in his garden, to feed his fowls and 
pigs, and to keep fresh and sweet the sago palm 
thatch of his hut. But though he did no work, 
Willatopy was an indefatigable sportsman. Inci- 
dentally, it is true, he supplied the family with fish 
and dugong and turtle, but in his code — which had 
a recognisable family likeness to the code of his 
father’s country — fishing and hunting and shooting, 
whatever their yield in food, were not to be con- 
founded with loathsome and derogatory Work. The 
labour which they exacted was Sport, and rich man 
that he was he could pour out his sweat over them 
and still remain proudly and unstainedly idle. 

At Auckland, Alexander had fallen in with 
brother Scots, who seemed to be flourishing in exile, 
though they lamented, in the manner of their great 
race, the harsh fate which had separated them from 
a beloved country to which they had no intention 
whatever to return. These brother Scots of Alex- 
ander’s had assured him that any kind of iron or 
steel junk would yield fabulous profits in the Isl- 
ands, and he after cautiously testing the advice by 
taking counsel of mere English New Zealanders, 
had gone all out on hardware. Much that he bought 
at old iron prices was surplus war material, and 
included sword bayonets and trench daggers. 
Never had such lovely killing knives been seen in 
th^ Straits, and the traders of Thursday Island just 


134 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


rose at them. Alexander sold out at a rate of profit 
which made even him gasp, and he was a business 
man who could stand a great deal of profit without 
turning a hair. Willatopy’s trench daggers were 
sweet weapons. They slipped over the fingers, and 
were gripped in the fist, so that the six-inch blades 
stood out as deadly steel extensions of the forearm. 
With the ordinary dagger one stabs up or down 
with a blade held at right angles to the wrist, but 
with trench daggers one hits out as in boxing, and 
delivers a blow with the weight of the body behind 
it. When Willatopy first put the two daggers on 
his hands and hit out, right, left, Ewing bolted 
behind the smoke stack. 

They are just the thing for sharks,” commented 
Willie with approval. 

Then take them off, boy, till you meet the 
sharks,” implored our cautious Alexander. 

Soon after Madame had been installed in her 
tents, after much going and coming at high tide 
through the “ lubbers’ hole ” of the bar — she held 
that one hair-raising journey through the surf was 
enough for honour — Willatopy summoned his gra- 
cious lady to witness the first trial of the daggers. 

There are plenty of sharks in the bay,” said he, 
fine sharks, as big as a whaleboat.” 

But what do you want with daggers? ” inquired 
Madame, vaguely recalling pictures of shark fishing 
with ropes and hooks. 

To kill the sharks with,” explained Willatopy. 
One hits, so and so, under the side fins.” 

But surely you don’t mean to go into the water 
among the sharks? ” gasped Madame, who had she 
been a loyal representative of the Baronet of Wigan 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


135 


should have welcomed any hazard to the life of the 
Heir of Topsham. 

“ Of course,” said Willatopy, grinning. “ Sharks 
are just clumsy sheep. No good, Madame. One at 
a time is no sport at all, but if I can get two at once, 
one with each dagger, there should be fun. So and 
so.” He hit out as he had done before Ewing, and 
Madame skipped like a she-goat. Willie with a 
dagger on each fist was a most alarming neighbour. 

Madame became reconciled to the expedition with 
difficulty. To her it was a wanton trifiing with 
death for Willatopy, however expert a swimmer, to 
venture with two bits of steel on his fists into the 
shark-infested bay. She had all the white woman^s 
dread of the man-eating shark, and could not get 
contact with Willatopy’s indifference. But when 
Mrs. Toppys had assured her that a shark, properly 
approached, is as harmless as a seal, and the two 
girls were not sufficiently interested to look on at 
the hunting, she consented to be present herself. 
But she made conditions. The yacht’s dinghy in 
which she was going must be rowed by two sailors 
and a third must stand in the bows with a dugong 
spear ready to interpose should Willatopy seem to 
be in grievous peril. The Heir of Toppys grinned 
at these childish precautions. To him they were 
just a white woman’s foolishness. 

The dinghy was rowed out to a part of the bay 
which was known to Willatopy as good shark coun- 
try, and the boy busied himself in tying scraps of 
cord to the grips of the daggers and to his own 
wrists. He wanted to make sure that the daggers 
would not get adrift when he opened his hands in 
swimming, and would be ready in place at the 


136 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


moment when his fists closed. Se was not excited 
in the least degree ; his one feeling was a mild desire 
to test the efficiency of trench daggers as shark 
killers. When he had brought the lifeboat through 
the big rollers on the bar, he had been visibly ex- 
alted; now on the eve of shark killing he was no 
more than placidly interested in the efficacy of hia 
twin daggers. 

He slipped over the side of the dinghy, and the 
rowers lay on their oars. He had told them to give 
him room, at least a hundred yards, lest the sharks 
might be frightened away. I think that that direc- 
tion eased Madame’s mind more than all his previ- 
ous protestations. Sharks must be far less terrible 
than she had supposed if they could be frightened 
away by a dinghy. 

Madame, herself a good svdmmer by European 
standards, watched Willie amazed. She had never 
supposed that a human being could swim with that 
perfect ease and swift smoothness. His brown body 
lay down in the water as if it loved it, and a bow 
wave rose and curled over the almost buried head. 
He swam on his side with a tremendous reach for- 
ward and thrust of his powerful right arm, and the 
drive of his legs was a revelation in the possibilities 
of marine propulsion. Madame could not see how 
he breathed, for his head was cuddled down on the 
left shoulder, though breathe he must have done 
somehow. 

I can’t properly describe it,” said Madame to 
me afterwards. He was a human torpedo. He 
went forward in one continuous smooth rush with 
that clear bow wave curling over his head.” 

At a little distance, which to Madame looked 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


137 


too far for safety — she still placed an emergency 
trust in the dugong spear — Willatopy’s head rose 
up and he stopped. Balancing himself in the water 
by imperceptible movements of hands and legs, 
Willatopy was hanging out his body as a bait for 
timid sharks. It was not long before one swooped 
down upon so attractive a prey. Madame saw the 
feather of water flung up by a black moving fln, 
while Willatoipy, peering far down into the clear 
waters of the bay, was on the alert against an attack 
more subtle. 

Silly beast,” murmured he, and his flsts tight- 
ened on the trench daggers. The black fln ran up 
and then disappeared as the shark rolled over to 
strike upwards with those triple rows of teeth 
which are set at some distance behind and below 
the snout. A shark must attack its prey belly up- 
wards, and strike from below ; if its mouth were in 
its snout like a crocodile^s it would be a much more 
dangerous foe. The shark rolled over and struck 
upwards. Willatopy’s head vanished, his brown 
body curled over lazily, and he dived exactly as a 
dolphin dives. A long swooping flash downwards. 
The shark broke the surface where Willie’s head 
had been, and Willatopy reappeared where the 
black fin had been. Shark and boy had changed 
places, and, if Madame had been nearer, she might 
have seen the grin spread out on Willatopy’s face. 
The shark twisted its long body about, again rolled 
over and again struck upwards. Grinning con- 
temj^tuously, Willatopy slipped downwards under 
the rising shark, and appeared again behind its 
tail. 


138 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Why doesn’t he kill the brute? ” muttered 
Madame. 

“ 1 don’t rightly understand,” replied the man 
with the fatuous spear. 

It looks ’orrible dangersome to me, ma’am. I 
can’t ’ardly believe the nigger boy will come back 
alive.” 

Once or twice more the shark struck at Willie, 
and once or twice more the boy evaded the stroke, 
but made no attack himself. Then all saw for what 
he waited. Another black fin, with a curling 
feather rising before it, came sliding up to take part 
in the sport. Madame, frightened, was now on her 
feet. Had time permitted, she would, I think, have 
disobeyed Willatopy’s instructions, and urged the 
boat forward to his assistance. But there was no 
time. The first shark was attacking again, and the 
second was rapidly approaching. Willatopy no 
longer delayed action. He evaded as before the 
upward stroke of shark number one, and then, be- 
fore the beast could turn, twisted about under water 
and rose beneath the belly of shark number two. 
Right, left, both daggers went home under the fin. 
Turning without coming to the surface for breath — 
he could stay nearly two minutes under water — • 
Willatopy swooped back at his first opponent, 
slipped under it as he had done with the other, and 
again shot out both fists — so and so. He came up 
between the two big fish in water reddened by their 
blood, and watched warily for further signs of 
activity. But both sharks were dead ; he had struck 
very swiftly, but he had struck home truly. 

Willatopy swam easily towards the boat. Shark 
hunting, especially with the very efficient trench! 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


139 


daggers, was a sport whicli rapidly palled, and lie 
had done with it. But it had not quite done with 
him. When he was some twenty yards from the 
motionless boat, a third shark, more cunning than 
his two fellows, rose at Willie from the depths with- 
out giving him warning on the surface. But Willa- 
topy was not caught yet. One swims with very 
clearly skinned eyes in shark-infested waters, and 
the boy saw the shark’s shadow before its body was 
near enough to be dangerous. The shark rising 
belly upwards could not see the boy drop down- 
wards like a stone, and when it did sight him, the 
stroke had failed, and Willatopy had dived under 
the boat. Madame leaning out over the side glared 
down into the clear, almost still, water. She saw 
what is rarely seen, an under-water fight between 
a man and a shark, and she saw, moreover, how 
fully Willatopy was justified in his self-confidence. 
The white body of the great fish shot by the dark 
form of the lithe, quickly manoeuvring boy, who, as 
it went past, flashed out two blows, right and left, 
as if he were a boxer side-stepping and countering 
an opponent’s rush. Madame could not see the 
daggers rip home, but she saw the blood spurt from 
the side of the shark and its huge body writhe and 
shudder. Then up came Willatopy’s head not six 
feet from the boat, and he swung himself in over 
the stern. The dead shark, still quivering, rolled 
slowly up to the surface, and floated there beside its 
slayer. The body after allowing for the immersed 
portions, was a good deal longer than the sixteen 
foot dinghy. 

They are good knives,” said Willatopy, pulling 
the trench knives off his flsts, and unfastening the 


140 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


retaining cords. Tliey are good knives, just the 
things for sharks. But sharks are silly sheep, 
Madame, hardly worth the trouble of killing.” He 
pointed to the three big bodies, each floating in its 
own red pool, and laughed. “ Two at once and then 
the third. One kills them just like the sheep that 
they are. There is no danger at all, not one little 
bit.” 

*«**««* 

But though Joy and Cry would not trouble to 
come out of their hut to see Willatopy kill sharks 
in the bay, they skipped like schoolgirls at the 
promise of a dance, when offered a fishing trip to 
the Great Barrier. They were Hulas of New 
Guinea, whose savage ancestors had for countless 
ages fished the waters to leeward of the Barrier. 
It was the great kindly sea farm of the Hulas, it 
had grown with them through more thousands of 
years than mankind can count, and it will stand 
there, grand, massive and mysterious, long after 
the last Hula has vanished from the earth. The 
abrupt north end of the Barrier was some ten miles 
distant — Madame could hear in her tent the ever- 
lasting thunder of the surf against its outer wall — 
and thence it wound southwards, skirting the North 
Queensland coast though never touching it, for 
twelve hundred wave-swept miles. Inshore, from 
Brisbane to Cape York, there interpose deep navi- 
gable channels, starred with islands, and through 
the Barrier itself are cut gaps here and there by 
which the hardy navigator may pass in safety from 
the outside Pacific Ocean to the inner channels. By 
such a passage, Willatopy, the boy of twelve, had 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


141 


steered his father’s yawl with his father’s corpse 
lashed to its deck. 

The Barrier is a long, narrow, tortuous wall of 
which the outer face — where the coral polyps love to 
cling in the foaming surf of the Pacific — drops 
down almost sheer for hundreds of feet. On the 
inner side the water is more shallow and broken up 
by reefs. This wall, twelve hundred miles long, is 
not more than a quarter of a mile wide on its cop- 
ing, and in some stretches is no more than a hun- 
4red feet. For hundreds of thousands of years the 
madrepores have been working upon it, each one 
living out his tiny life in the whirl of the surf, and 
then dying, to leave his skeleton of lime as one more 
brick in the gigantic masonry. 

The coral polyp, species madrepore, of the Bar- 
rier is a patient, courageous little seaman. He is 
born and bred in the wide ocean. He cannot endure 
the boredom of life in the still, tame, waters below 
the hundred-foot level; he cannot exist above the 
low tidal mark, and his salt soul withers in the 
muddy freshness of river mouths. I love Darwin’s 
romantic theory of the Barrier, though later author- 
ities have cast doubts upon its sufficiency. Project 
your mind back, says Darwin, some few hundreds 
of thousands of years to the time when the Queens- 
land coast was much higher out of the water than 
it is now in these degenerate days. Imagine the 
land slowly sinking, a few inches maybe in a cen- 
tury, and there you are ! The Great Barrier, skirt- 
ing the coast yet never touching it, is explained. 
The coral polyps, which cannot support life except 
between low water mark and twenty fathoms, 
can only build fringing reefs along the shore. 


142 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Wherever a river or stream comes down there is a 
gap, for the coral polyps cannot live away from 
their native salt. We have then a fringing reef, 
cut transversely with gaps, and this reef continu- 
ally rises in height from the sea bottom as the land 
slowly sinks. Each foot of subsidence gives to the 
polyps an added foot of water in which to live and 
multiply. The aeons pass, the land subsides, and 
presently a water-filled channel opens out between 
the original fringing reef and the shore. As the 
land sinks still further, the channel widens, and is 
ever widening. The fringing reef has become a bar- 
rier of which the base on the sea floor is always sink- 
ing, and the coping of the roof always rising, built 
up by madrepore skeletons. Against the edge of the 
new shore a new fringing reef is built up. And so 
on through the long centuries. That is Darwin^s 
theory. There are others, less imaginative and more 
mechanical, but my instinct rejects them. I feel 
that Charles Darwin, though himself a very bad 
sailor, has alone done full and sympathetic justice 
to the splendid sea instincts of the bold madrepores. 
They scorn the ease of shelter and shallows. Theirs 
is the open coast on which the wild waves break; 
they make the long fringe of it one vast coral tomb, 
and when the land sinks they turn that ancient 
fringing tomb into a vast outer Barrier. The madre- 
pore is a true sea architect, and no peddling theory 
of under-water detritus, slowly accumulating as a 
foundation for his masonry, would deceive him into 
building on the rubbish. 

Willatopy took charge of the expedition to the 
Great Barrier. He was well equipped with gear, 
for being very rich and not consenting to do any 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


143 


work, he bought his nets in Thursday Island. The 
one which he dragged out of store looked as if it 
would hold enough fish to feed the Island for twelve 
months. It was sixty feet long and about ten feet 
wide. One edge was weighted and the other buoyed, 
and draw ropes were arranged so that the whole 
net could be pulled into one long narrow bag. For 
the service of the fishing party he commandeered 
the motor launch and two whaleboats. 

We will go out with the ebb and come back on 
the flood,” said he, and the jolly little motor boat 
shall tow the whalers. When we arrive, the motor 
boat shall be anchored in safety while we fish from 
the whaleboats. We shall want ” — he spoke as con- 
fidently as if the resources of the Humming Top 
were as unreservedly at his call as were those of 
Tops Island — we shall want six strong sailors for 
each boat, and an engineer to look after the motor. 
I don’t understand motors.” 

^^May we have the boats and men?” asked 
Madame sweetly of Ching, who had come ashore to 
pay his regular morning visit. He was responsible 
for Madame’s safety on the Island, and nothing 
would persuade him that her pretty head was not 
in grievous peril. The Skipper belonged to the 
dark adventurous past. 

You are the owner,” growled he, and if you 
choose to butt my boats on the reefs it is your 
responsibility, Madame Gilbert.” 

“ Willatopy is a first-rate pilot,” said she. I 
will trust the boats with him.” 

The Skipper swore under his breath. “ It is not 
my boats I think of, but of your foolishness, Ma- 
dame. You will spoil that Moor until he gets out* 


144 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


side of himself, and then yon will be sorry for the 
rest of yonr life. Once a savage always a savage. 
He is a grand pilot of the Straits, because he has 
lived in them and sailed them all his life. But in 
everything else he is a naked savage. Go away fish- 
ing if you please; you vdll be safe with my men.’’ 

Ching turned sulkily away. He grudged Willa- 
topy that local knowledge of the Coral Sea which 
he would never have opportunity to accumulate for 
himself, and above all he grudged him Madame’s 
undisguised favours. Madame landed a parting dig 
in the middle of the Skipper’s back. 

Willatopy may be a Moor,” said she, what- 
ever a Moor may be. But you can’t look him in the 
eyes and protest that he isn’t a Toppys.” That was 
the worst of the poor Skipper’s troubles. He had 
served the Family for twenty-five years, he had all 
the Devon man’s respect for the landed gentry of 
his native county, and he was subjected almost 
nightly to the veiled hints of Alexander Ewing. 
Why had Madame Gilbert sailed for the Torres 
Straits, and did she and Sir John know that the 
Willatopy whom they had found was there waiting 
to be found? It was not only the naked savagery 
of Willatopy which made Captain Ching long to 
destroy him. 

Madame, the girls, and Willatopy went forth to 
the yacht in the dinghy, passing the bar at nearly 
high water, and there joined the procession of boats 
which lay waiting for them. The second engi- 
neer took charge of the motor engine, Willatopy 
himself grasped the tiller, Joy and Cry bubbling 
with eagerness to travel in a buzz boat,” clambered 
into the bows, and the adventurers set forth for the 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


145 


Great Barrier, wMch a page or two back I have 
ventured to describe. It was early morning. The 
sun shone as it shone every day throughout that 
gracious southern winter. Its rays had a shrew^d 
bite in them which one never feels in the moist Eng- 
lish summer, so that Madame never ventured to 
confront them at high noon without the protection 
of a helmet. The wind was blowing up from the 
south-east as it always did, freshening every 
moment, and urging on the tireless Pacific rollers. 
The string of boats rose and fell as Willatopy drove 
them across the swell, and every now and then a 
wave would break over the bows, and the warm salt 
spray lash across the faces of the passengers. 
Madame Gilbert, in her bathing dress and thin 
trench coat, was equipped to laugh at the lashing of 
salt water, and the skins of the half-castes glistened 
as it soaked into them. Willatopy at a hint from 
Madame — though he raised his eyebrows in surprise 
— had put on the holiday trousers of Thursday 
Island. But he warned her that when the serious 
business of fishing called for his professional atten- 
tion, the absurd usages of civilisation would go scat. 

That is right,” explained Madame, in the 
water. But on land or in a boat you should be 
dressed — slightly. Your father was an English 
gentleman, Willatopy.” 

‘^My father said,” quoted Willatopy, ‘^without 
clothes there is no curiosity. Sin came into the 
world with clothes.” 

Yes,” drawled Madame. But that was a long 
time ago. And sin having come we have got to put 
up with it. I prefer you in trousers, Willatopy.” 

^‘As my lady pleases,” said he, and Madame 


146 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


started. It was a strange sentence to come from so 
very dark a mouth, and she wondered where he had 
heard it. Then she remembered that it was Marie^s 
English formula in acknowledgment of an instruc- 
tion. Willatopy never came to her tent without 
invitation, and, so far as she knew, had never met 
Marie except in the officers’ mess of the yacht. 
Where could he have heard her use just that 
phrase? Had Marie, in her clandestine French 
fashion, constituted herself the instructress of Wil- 
latopy in polite usages as she herself understood 
them? Violet lightning began to flash from Ma- 
dame’s eyes, and she determined to be very watch- 
ful of the movements of that maid of hers. Ever 
since her confidential talk with Grant of Thursday 
Island she had felt that the presence of Marie in 
the yacht and on the Island was a danger. Marie 
was a promiscuous little she-devil wholly devoid 
of moral scruples. If in defiance of Madame’s warn- 
ing she indulged her esoteric tastes for Willatopy’s 
brown skin and bright blue eyes, grave mischief 
might be done before it could be stopped. If she 
does,” murmured Madame, through her gritting 
teeth, I will send her back to France to be shot. 
And I will give myself the pleasure of attending 
her execution. There is no weak masculine softness 
about me.” 

The water had fallen below its full height when 
Madame caught her first glimpse of the famous Bar- 
rier, and the Pacific swell, urged against the outer 
face by the south-east trade wind, was meeting the 
tidal flow and tossing great spumes of spray high 
into the air. Over the whole width of the reef the 
water boiled and roared, and masses of coral lime- 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


147 


stone, tons in weight, were flung about like small 
stones. Although the madrepores cannot live above 
the level of low water, the Barrier was several feet 
higher, and here comes in the mechanical theory of 
Chamisso and his followers to modify the beautiful 
simplicity of Darwin’s hypothesis of subsidence. By 
force of the swell which beats perpetually on the 
outer wall, where the polyps flourish in surf, and 
where their millions of tiny skeletons are perpetu- 
ally adding to the structure, lumps are being torn 
off and piled upon the coping of the wall. These 
lumps under the solvent action of sun and water 
become cemented into masses, so that the purity of 
the original madrepore design is partially lost. The 
Barrier has risen higher than the polyps unaided 
could have built it. The sea is no respecter of coral 
graveyards. In this way the interior of purely 
coral islands may have become heaped up by masses 
torn by the sea from the fringing reefs and flung 
high up the shore. 

Though the Barrier broke the full force of the 
Paciflc rollers, enough of water swirled over it to 
set the string of boats tossing and bucking in the 
tide rips of the sheltered western face. Willatopy 
ordered the whaleboats to be cast off, and the motor 
launch to be anchored some half a mile short of the 
reefs. The second engineer remained on board of 
her, but the Topy family and Madame Gilbert trans- 
ferred their wet persons to one of the whaleboats. 
The long net was dragged out and stretched between 
the boats, which drifted slowly on parallel courses 
towards the Barrier. Between them ran the line 
of floats which marked the upper edge of the net. 
As the boats moved rather faster than the heavily 


148 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


weighted net, it sagged between them, pulling out 
into a long wide-mouthed bag from the jaws of 
which the fish feeding in the shallows could not 
readily escape. The net was carried forward in this 
fashion until the boats which were controlling it 
had reached the inner shelving edge of the reef, and 
the depth of water had come down to about ten feet, 
which, it may be recalled, was the depth to which 
the weighted edge of the net descended. Then the 
fun began, for the drag-rope on the lower edge be- 
came entangled in the rough coral lumps on the sea 
floor, and the fish which had been herded between 
the net’s capacious jaws began to skurry forth 
through the opening avenues of escape. To Madame 
this overfiow, as it were, seemed to matter little, for, 
between the boats, the fish were leaping in hun- 
dreds, even thousands, and even if half of them won 
a way to freedom, there would be far more left than 
the Humming Top or Tops Island could possibly 
consume. But the family of Topy had other views. 
The moment had arrived for which these amphib- 
ians had waited and hoped ; anyone, white or brown, 
could trap sea fish in a net; it was vouchsafed to 
them alone, hereditary fishers of Hula, to pursue 
escaping fish into their own depths, and to catch 
them directly by hand and teeth. 

When the lower drag-rope caught and strained, 
Willatopy directed both boats to anchor, and cried 
out to his sisters in native dialect. What he said 
in words Madame did not know, but what he meant 
was instantly made plain. Up leapt the three Topys, 
away went trousers and banana-skin petticoats, and 
the three of them, bare as when they were born, and 
revelling in their supreme sea skill, streaked over- 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


149 


board. The one dark body and the two light ones 
flashed over the gunwale, and took the water like 
seals. Down they went to where gaps opened be- 
tween the net and the sea floor, and the fish were 
struggling to escape. The human fish swooped upon 
the sea natives, and grappled them with claws and 
teeth. These were no small feeble, defenceless fish ; 
the least of them weighed a pound and a half, and 
the erectile spines near the tail fins made them in 
their own element opponents worthy even of the 
Hula Topys. Avoiding the spines, the Topys, boy 
and girls of equal skill and quickness, grabbed the 
elusive fish by the gills, and when both hands were 
full, buried their sharp white fangs in the backs of 
them. 

I shall never forget that sight,” said Madame 
to me. Down they would all flash for a few sec- 
onds, and then the three black heads shot up and 
fish in torrents poured into the boat. Blood ran 
from their mouths, and from the bitten backs of 
the captured fish. Often and often they shot up, 
all three of them, with a two-pounder in each hand, 
and another gripped in their jaws. We poor white 
folk are proud if we can by artifice tickle a trout 
in its lair and ravish it from a hole with our hands. 
These Hula Topys caught those fish in the free open 
sea. They never seemed to miss their swoop, for 
they stayed down a few seconds only at each dive> 
and never came up with empty hands. Their div- 
ing was a revelation. There was no effort in it, 
no clumsy heaving up of the loins and extravagant 
splashing. Their brown bodies rolled over and van- 
ished with as little fuss as the diving of a seal. 
Perhaps that is the nearest word to describe what 


150 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


I saw. The Topys were Just seals. Their frizzy 
hair plastered down by the water gave them, too, 
something of the look of seals. All the while they 
never paused for breath. It was up and down, up 
and down, without ceasing, for fully a quarter of 
an hour, and the fish came aboard in a torrent. 
Our bottom boards were covered before the Topys 
ceased. Alnd then it was the girls who stopped 
to rest, not that indefatigable Willatopy. Joy 
and Cry swu^^g in over the high sharp bows and 
sat down panting on the forward thwart.’’ Ma- 
dame laughed a little to herself before she resumed 
the description. I was interested to observe,” 
she went on, that the girls were tattooed in deep 
blue patterns down the centre line of the body and 
on the upper part of their thighs. And this in- 
terested me, for A¥illatopy had no tattoo marks at 
all. The pattern was identical on both girls, a 
series of light brown saltires on a blue ground re- 
sembling Alexander’s Scottish St. Andrew’s Cross. 
It was curious that the Hon. William Toppys 
should have permitted his daughters to submit to 
the Hula tribal markings while his son was ex- 
cluded. But perhaps men are not tattooed in the 
tribe though most of the brown Melanesian boys on 
Tops Island had some face markings. What struck 
me most vividly was the effect of the tattooing in 
removing the appearance of bareness. If the Topy 
girls had been tattooed from breast to knee they 
would have appeared to the casual eye to have been 
wearing tight bathing dresses, woven in blue and 
brown checks. There is a lot to be said for tattoo- 
ing. Though my dear men turned their bashful 
backs there was no suggestion at all of immodesty 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


151 


about Joy and Cry. I loved their admirable, uncon- 
scious simplicity.” 

When the whaleboats had been loaded with fish 
to their utmost capacity, the unwanted remainder 
were allowed to go free, and the net was hauled in 
and coiled down. It was the hand and mouth fish- 
ing which the Toppys really loved, the savage sport, 
not the larder which absorbed their interests. ^The 
net was the means to an end — the penning up of 
fish so that Willie and his sisters migfit attack them 
in their native element. The party lunched by the 
Barrier while waiting for the tide to turn, and at 
slack water Willatopy suggested that Madame, al- 
ready clad in her silk bathing gear, should go over 
the side with him. Madame was willing, but dreaded 
sharks. She was quite fearless when confronted by 
risks which she understood, but the thought of 
swimming with sharks smelling at her toes made 
the brave lady’s blood run cold. For her daily 
swims off the Island she always kept to a small 
narrow creek warranted by Willatopy to be shark- 
proof. 

Sharks are nothing,” remonstrated Willie. 

They will not come where there are so many boats, 
and if they do I will drive them away.” 

But you have no daggers here, Willie,” objected 
Madame. Even you cannot shoo away sharks with 
bare hands.” 

One of the sailors offered his sheath knife, but 
Willatopy put it aside. If a silly shark comes by 
I will borrow it,” said he. There will be time 
enough.” 

Spurred by all this easy indifference — though she 
saw herself being gobbled up by a huge shark while 


152 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Willatopy was strolling off to borrow the sailor’s 
knife — ^Madame flung aside the trench coat and her 
sun helmet and stood forth as a reluctant sacriflce 
for the honour of the white race. Though it may 
have really been a case of heroism without risk, in 
her terrified imagination the seas swarmed with 
black shark fins. Over she went, and following her 
went Willatopy and the girls. 

I can swim a bit,” said Madame, and rather 
fancied myself at home. But those brown seals 
made rings around me. While I lumbered noisily 
along they would frisk to and fro, now behind, now 
in front, now on either side. Whenever they pleased, 
they would join me in half a dozen swift vivid 
strokes. My progress was exactly like that of an 
elderly fat woman down a field with three terriers 
sporting about her. It was a humiliating spectacle. 
I did my best; I swam as fast as I could, and when 
I got back to the boat I was puffing like an 
asthmatic grampus. Willatopy was good enough to 
say that I had quite a useful leg drive and might 
learn to swim some day if I stuck at it. He regarded 
me much as a plus golfer does his thirty-six handi- 
cap grandmother. I knew better than to show those 
Topys that ungainly agitated sprawl which in Eu- 
rope we call diving from the surface. But though 
the swimming was a humiliation I enjoyed sitting 
in the sun to dry.” 

They returned as they had come, the motor launch 
towing the whaleboats, and were sped homewards 
by the welling flood tide. Madame, though she 
knew it not, was nearing the end of her brief spell 
of irresponsible happiness. While they had been 
disporting themselves off the Barrier, Fate had 


WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN 


153 


rung up the curtain for the Final Act in the drama 
of Willatopy. It was an Act which was long in the 
playing, but the end loomed inevitable almost from 
the opening bars of the overture. As the string of 
boats merrily buzzed into the narrow bay, they all 
saw that the Humming Top no longer lay there 
alone. Within the entrance moored to the opposite 
bank was a small schooner which had just come in, 
for the crew were even at that moment stowing her 
lowered sails upon the deck. 

What is that ship? ” asked Madame, her brows 
gathering into an uneasy frown. The Island had 
seemed so much the private property of the Topys 
and of the Humming Top that the presence of a 
stranger schooner became an unmannerly intru- 
sion. Especially so weather-beaten and dirty a 
schooner as that one over there. 

Trading schooners often shelter here for the 
night while on a round of the islands,” explained 
Willatopy. My yawl does all the Baru trade that 
there is.” 

But Madame Gilbert, in spite of this satisfying 
explanation of the schooner’s presence in the bay, 
continued to look upon the vessel with disfavour. 
If one schooner dropped in thus unceremoniously, 
another might come, and another. Some day 
strangers might land, strangers from Thursday 
Island or from the big world beyond Thursday 
Island. The splendid steam yacht at its moorings 
and Madame’s luxurious camp outfit in the woods 
were not common objects of the shore to be accepted 
in the Straits without explanation. And they would 
use up a lot of explanation, and still leave the curi- 
ous unsatisfied. There was too much of Toppys 


154 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


about the Island and the yacht for their conjunc- 
tion to be wholly a matter of chance. Grant, Willa- 
topy’s banker, already knew much, and had guessed 
the rest. He was safe, for his own reasons. But 
others coming might carry away to Thursday 
Island, and thence to the big world beyond Thurs- 
day Island, a story of the Toppys yacht afloat, and 
of the Topy family ashore; and some might — some 
certainly would — connect the one with the other. 
From that discovery to a peering into local regis- 
ters would be, for our inquisitive white race, a brief 
step. Too many people knew the Toppys secret 
already, and too many more must presently get 
some hint of it. It was not much of a secret after 
all. Madame frowned at the dirty schooner and 
shrugged her shoulders. It was not her secret any- 
way, though she had done her best to keep it. 


CHAPTEK X 


THE COMING OF THE HEDGE LAWYER 

'T'HE island schooner sailed at dawn. But three 
^ days later another came and went, and three 
days later yet another. It never rains but It pours. 
The Hedge Lawyer, spurred by a greater master of 
Fate than his employers in London City, came as a 
sick and draggled passenger in Schooner number 
Three. He did not land upon the evening of his ar- 
rival, so that Madame did not see him, or hear of 
him, until the early forenoon after his ship had 
gone and left him stranded as a trespasser on Tops 
Island. From this marooning of the Hedge Lawyer 
sprang many things which shall be told in their 
place. The first consequence was that the man, a 
Cockney of Cockneys, was without a home in an 
island which possessed few huts and no houses of 
rest for travellers. The feckless intruder had not 
even bethought him to bring along a tent. With his 
luggage, a small suit case, he was put ashore in the 
schooner’s dinghy, and left, a black-footed, frock- 
coated figure of fun, upon the fair white sandy 
beach. 

Madame Gilbert, returning from her morning dip 
in the shark-proof creek, heard shrieks of pain in- 
terspersed with the savage howls of Willatopy. She 
scurried towards the sounds as fast as her bare feet 
would carry her. A black-booted, frock-coated 
155 


156 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


stranger was flying shrieking towards the sea; be- 
hind him, keeping foot to foot with him so that the 
sharp fish spear which he carried might maintain 
its painful pressure upon the small of the man^s 
back followed WiHatopy, naked and extremely 
angry. 

“ Huh ! roared Willatopy, thrusting with the 
spear. The stranger, brought up short by the sea 
margin, rolled over screaming. He buried his miser- 
able face in the sand so that he might not see the 
stroke of death which his terrors anticipated. 
Madame, rushing forward, stepped across the man^s 
body, and held up a restraining hand. 

Stop,” she cried. Who is this man, Willa- 
topy, that you should frighten him so? ” 

“ He wants to eat me,” roared Willatopy. Stand 
aside, Madame, that I may cut off his ugly white 
head and smoke it in the fire of my cook-house.” 

The stranger howled, and wriggled between 
Madame’s feet, as if, like an armadillo, he would 
burrow his way to safety through the fine sharp 
sand. It was not the flaked oatmeal of a coral beach, 
for the water of the bay, flushed by island streams, 
did not carry the madrepores’ living ration of salt. 

Stand back, Willatopy,” commanded Madame 
Gilbert sternly. She pushed the stranger con- 
temptuously with her bare white foot. “ Get up, 
you crawling thing there, and tell me who you are. 
This island is private property, and you have no 
business here.” 

The man cautiously got upon his feet, and stood 
so that Madame’s strong body interposed between 
his terrified person and the savage spear of Willa- 
topy. His absurd clothes were plastered thickly 


THE COMING OF THE HEDGE LAWYER 157 


with damp, clinging sand — ^his thin rat face was 
pinched and white, and his lank, mud-coloured hair 
and moustache drooped forlornly. He was not a 
proud specimen of the dominant white race. He 
gasped and stuttered behind the protective back of 
Madame, who still faced towards Willatopy, and 
held the savage half of him in subjection. Willa- 
topy threw down his spear. 

“ As my lady pleases,” said he sourly. 

The trespasser upon the fair strand of Tops 
Island regained some little of the thin courage 
which had poured out of his black boots. He was 
no longer menaced with immediate death at the 
point of the barbarous fish spear ; a beautiful white 
woman was present; had he not been an officer — 
God forgive our blear-eyed War Office — and was he 
not a gentleman? He perked up a little, tried to 
brush the sand from his sleeves and spoke. 

I am John Clifford, managing clerk to Chud- 
leigh. Caves, Caves, and Chudleigh, solicitors, of 
St. Mary Axe.” 

Another lawyer ! ” cried Madame, and broke 
into peal after peal of rippling laughter. Another 
lawyer ! And once again that wonderful perspicu- 
ous Willatopy has chased a lawyer to the sea with 
a fish spear. Willatopy, I forgive you. What a 
happy world it would be if all men had your instinct 
for vermin and had from the first adopted your 
methods of extermination.” 

So that’s all right,” quoth Willatopy, possess- 
ing himself of the fallen fish spear. 

The late officer and present gentleman shrieked 
and grovelled. 

You poor worm a British officer, even one the 


158 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

most temporary ! ” Madame^s lip curled in disgust. 

And yet we won the war.” 

“ The black boy has a spear and I am unarmed. 
If I had a bomb now ...” 

You would throw it at him. And miss because 
your hand trembles so. Get behind me, British 
officer. I have no skirts for your protection; 
though, had I known of your coming, I would have 
stayed to put them on. Perhaps by then your head 
would have been fizzling in Willatopy^s smoke, and 
I, for one, would not have felt regret.” 

The scorn of her bit deep. If, lady, you will 
send for another spear, I will not shelter any more 
behind your — skirts.” 

“ That is better,” said Madame. The worm has 
turned at last. Shall we send for another spear, 
Wniatopy? ” 

Willatopy did not reply. Instead he threw away 
his own weapon, doubled round Madame, grabbed 
the stranger’s arm ; ducked his head under it, and 
with a great lift and heave of the buttock tossed 
Mr. John Clifford six feet out into the water. The 
shore fell steeply, and the lawyer soused under. 
When he struggled out his damaged clothes had be- 
come irreparable. Madame surveyed the dripping 
figure, more a figure of fun than ever. 

‘‘ I hope,” observed she politely, “ that you have 
brought a change with you. Chills are as danger- 
ous to health in the Tropics as fish spears. Now, 
Willatopy, while our uninvited and rudely handled 
guest steams elegantly in the morning sun, perhaps 
you will explain what stimulated into vigorous ac- 
tion those admirable instincts of yours for the ex- 


THE COMING OF THE HEDGE LAWYER 159 


termination of lawyers. Wliat is all the row 
about? 

“ He came ashore in a boat/’ said Willatopy, 

and landed on my island, Tops Island. He walked 
up the beach, and I met him at the fringe of the 
woods. ‘ What do you here? ’ I said. ‘ This is my 
island. I am very rich, and my name is Willatopy.’ 
^ You are the man I have come to see,’ he said. ^ You 
are a great English Lord, and I have come to take 
you to England, and to get you all your rights. You 
are kept out of them by villains,’ said he. ‘My 
father was a White Chief,’ said I, ‘ but I am just 
WTllatopy.’ ‘ No,’ said he, ‘ you are the Lord of 
Tops Ham, the Home of the Toppys. Your father is 
dead, and your uncle is dead. You are now the 
Lord. Come home to England with me, and I will 
get you all your rights.’ Then I knew that the white 
rat lied, for why should a man come all the way 
from England to get his rights for a stranger? I 
remember what my father said that the English 
devoured one another. This English man wanted 
to draw me away from my Island that he might 
kill and eat me. The English are all Cannibals. 
So I caught up my fish spear, and thrust at him. 
He ran away howling, and I ran behind jabbing my 
spear in his back. He must be covered with my 
jabs under that black coat of his. He is like a 
missionary in his clothes, but really he is a canni- 
bal.” 

“ So now you know,’^ observed Madame to John 
Clifford. “ WTllatopy is not to be taken in by fairy 
stories about English Lords and the rights in Eng- 
land. And Willatopy, as you have found out, is an 
awkward customer to humbug, I should advise you 


160 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


to up stakes and begone, fair stranger. ’Twere 
better so,^’ she sang. Bid me good-bye and go.” 
Madame held out a hand, and smiled winningly. 

I have done you a service, and perhaps you will 
remember Madame Gilbert, when you are far away 
in England. The scars upon your back will always 
remind you of my friend Willatopy, that perspicu- 
ous exterminator of vermin. I am sorry that we 
cannot entertain you, even with a share in our 
breakfast. We are hospitable folk, but we draw the 
hard stiff line at lawyers. Farewell, officer and 
gentleman.” 

But I have lost my suit case,” wailed the damp, 
unhappy Clifford — he was drying quite nicely in the 
sunshine — and the schooner which brought me 
here has sailed away. How can I go? You are a 
white woman, and should take pity on a fellow 
countryman. I am wet and hungry, and the chills 
are running all over me. I am sure the spear was 
poisoned, and that I shall die here like a dog and 
be damned.” 

Name of a Dog ! ” swore Madame Gilbert. Do 
you suppose I care how you die or where you go 
afterwards? You are not worth the price of good 
pit coal, so I take leave to doubt the damning. How 
did you expect to get away when you had your black 
carcase dumped upon our Island? By your own 
dirty law you are no better than a trespasser.” 

expected that Lord — that Mr. Willatopy 
would carry me away in his yawl when he had 
learned my news of his inheritance. It is all true 
that I spoke to him. They told me in Thursday 
Island that he had a yawl and was the boldest sailor 
in the Straits,” 


THE COMING OF THE HEDGE LAWYER 161 


WTllatopy, leave said Madame. “ I would 
be alone with the little stranger. If you should see 
his suit case on the sand you might pitch it down. 
He steams prettily, but would be the better for a 
dry change. If he dies before I have ragged him to 
the bones, I shall be for ever desolated. I am pleased 
with you, Willatopy. You are the worthy son of 
the Great White Chief, your father. If you could 
look in at my camp, and send the steward down 
with breakfast — with breakfast for two; he might 
die too soon if I don’t feed him — ^I shall be infinitely 
obliged. Be quick, my dear, for I am powerful 
hungry. And ask Marie for my trench coat,” she 
shouted after the departing Willie. I came away 
to bathe in private, and did not expect strangers. 
Specially when they were not invited,” added she 
pointedly. 

It is lucky for you, Mr. John Clifford, officer 
and gentleman, that I did not go swimming to-day 
in the fashion of Joy and Cry, just to see how it felt 
to be quite unhampered. I did think of trying. You 
would not then have had me run a step to your 
assistance. And now I am not going to speak 
another word until my hunger is appeased. You 
have my permission to be seated. What ever pos- 
sessed you, man, to enter the Tropics in those 
funereal clothes? This is not St. Mary Axe. If 
your suit case is really lost there will be for you no 
wear except a loin cloth and a sun-stripped skin. 
You have no idea until you feel it in the buff how 
the sun bites. And this is our island winter. In 
the summer — we shall not take you off, my poor 
friend, and no schooner comes inside our bar — in 
the summer you will fry, and your miserable thin 


162 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


white hide will frizzle off your wasted flesh. And 
now be silent, if you can, until I have eaten.^’ The 
wretched victim had not spoken a word for the past 
five minutes, but that was nothing to Madame. I 
have already said that in action she was as swift 
and ruthless as she was babblesome in speech. 

They had breakfast together seated on the sand, 
and the cabin steward of the yacht waited upon 
them. He showed no visible sign of surprise at the 
little stranger’s appearance, though his soul must 
have been ravaged with curiosity. Even yacht 
stewards are human. 

Now,” said Madame, when the steward had 
gone, and she had deeply inhaled her first beloved 
after-breakfast cigarette. Now, if it is possible 
for a lawyer, tell me something of the bare un- 
varnished truth. Your story of Willatopy’s Lord- 
ship is only one degree less probable than your own 
reputed status of officer and gentleman. You are 
John Clifford, managing clerk to some many-part- 
nered firm in St. Mary Axe, London, E.C. So far, 
the Court is with you. Get on with the rest.” 

“ I was an officer, for three months before the 
Armistice. A second lieutenant of Royal Artil- 
lery.” 

Mon Dieu ! ” said Madame politely. I knew 
the English Army was hard put to it, but was it as 
bad as all that? Did you see any service? ” 
“No. I got exemption during most of the war. 
I was indispensable at home.” 

“ While gallant French and English boys were 
being killed,” Madame’s teeth snapped. “You 
lawyers look after yourselves. God, if I had lost a 
son of mine in the war I would take you out in 


THE COMING OF THE HEDGE LAWYER 163 

yonder dinghy and throw you to the sharks. That 
is what you are fit for. Shark’s food.” 

‘‘You are not very civil, Madame Gilbert,” 
grumbled the managing indispensable clerk. 

“ My unshakeable urbanity under the most severe 
provocation,” responded Madame, “fills me with 
wonder. Also with admiration. How I keep it up 
I cannot understand. Get on. I accept the story 
that you got yourself made a stay-at-home second 
lieutenant of Garrison Artillery because you were 
afraid of the open field. I accept that. Now, what 
about Willatopy?” 

“ It is true about him. His father and uncle are 
dead, and he is the heir of Topsham. We were 
almost sure of it in St. Mary Axe — we have a large 
Devonshire connection, and know the line of every 
family of note. We were nearly sure in London; 
since then I have inspected the registers in Thurs- 
day Island. That black boy is the Twenty-Eighth 
Baron of Topsham.” 

“ Humph ! ” said Madame. “ It is no business of 
mine, though my yacht yonder is chartered from one 
member of the Toppys family. I expect there is a 
catch somewhere, which you will find out — in St. 
Mary Axe. But how comes it that your firm have 
intervened? Do they represent the interests of the 
Family? ” 

Madame must be highly favoured by the Im- 
mortal Gods. For the second time in this history 
she was privileged to see a lawyer blush. First it 
was Roger Gatepath, now it was that lesser lumi- 
nary John Clifford. 

“ No,” he stammered. Not exactly. We have 


164 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


a large Devonshire connection, and we wish to see 
justice done to the Heir of an ancient House.” 

“And incidentally to increase the large Devon- 
shire connection.” Madame’s voice, when she 
pleased, could rasp like a file of high carbon steel. 
“ To habitual knavery you add incidental poaching 
when it offers a profitable connection. What a 
trade! Man, look at this island. It is the most 
beautiful in the Straits, and until this morning 
shone as if blessed by Heaven. With your com- 
ing, the air grows chill and dark as though a curse 
had fallen. It is lucky I have eaten, or your ill- 
omened presence would banish my appetite. And 
yet in spite of the most overwhelming provocation 
I continue to comport myself towards you with the 
most suave politeness. Vive la politesse! But I 
won’t indefinitely answer for my own restraint. If 
you provoke me further, I may forget myself and 
become abusive.” 

“ I shall not stay here to be insulted. I am a 
demobilised British officer, and ” 

“ A temporary gentleman,” put in Madame. 
“ Sit down, British officer, or I will set Willatopy 
at you. Where will you go? This Island belongs 
to Willatopy, and if you pick a banana without his 
leave, we will hale you to Thursday Island, and 
consign you to the deepest dungeon. No, on sec- 
ond thoughts we will punish you ourselves. To 
us is entrusted the high justice, the middle, and the 
low. We are monarchs of all we survey. We can 
keel-haul you under the teak fenders of the Hum’ 
ming Top, toast you over a slow fire, or throw you 
to your brethren the sharks of the sea. We can 
do any violent thing we please with you. No one 


THE COMING OF THE HEDGE LAWYER 165 


will miss you; no one will inquire after you. We 
will «ay that you left the Island — the rest will be 
silence. Every man and boy in my yacht is my de- 
voted servant ; every man, woman, and child on this 
Island is a slave of Willatopy. Man, you did not 
know what perils you called up when you had your- 
self cast on this Island of Tops. Do not, I im- 
plore you, repeat in the hearing of my sailors this 
preposterous story of Willatopy’s Heirship. For 
the moment they are my servants, but in blood and 
bone they are the feudal retainers of the Family 
of Toppys. The little fingers of my sailors are 
thicker than Willatopy’s loins. You have felt the 
scorpion sting of his fish spear; you have yet to 
feel the searing shattering blast from the Humming 
Top’s guns. My sailors would blow you into frag- 
ments from the foc’s’le, and say grace afterwards 
with unction. We are smugglers and pirates every 
one of us. What to us is a lawyer more or less? 
You are homeless, and friendless, and in our power. 
We can put you to frizzle in the heat by day, and 
starve you with cold in the long nights. We can 
deny you food. Even the wayside streams belong 
to us. You cannot walk or lie down, or eat, or 
drink, save by our gracious permission. You are 
cut off from the world, an outcast. Draw comfort 
if you can from my words.’’ 

You are pleased to chaff me, Madame Gilbert. 
The King’s writ runs even in Tops Island.” 

In the immortal words of a famous British 
statesman: wait and see, Mr. John Clifford, de- 
mobilised second lieutenant. And now for the mo- 
ment I have done with you. Keep clear of my camp, 
and, for your life, fiee from Willatopy. When you 


166 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


are hungered lie on on the beach and howl like a 
dog that is lost. Maybe someone will hear you; 
maybe, on the other hand, someone won’t. It is 
still less likely that anyone will minister to your 
wants even if your cries are heard. But as a merci- 
ful sister I indicate this one thin chance of preserv- 
ing from extinction the pale flame of your life. If 
you will now excuse me, Mr. John Clifford, I will 
withdraw to my tent and complete my interrupted 
toilet. Good-bye-e-e.” 

‘‘A good morning’s work,” murmured Madame 
Gilbert as she strolled away leaving the discon- 
solate Hedge Lawyer to complete his drying alone. 

And let us pray that yet another wandering island 
schooner may drop into our bay that we may ur- 
gently speed the parting guest — with a boathook 
if he won’t get moving of his own volition. In these 
remote islands of the British Empire one should 
never omit that punctilious hospitality which is 
due even to the most noxious of strangers.” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE campaign OPENS 

lyr ADAME GILBERT kept no diary of her 
adventures, and her memory for dates is pre- 
carious. But the log of the Humming Top — to 
which I have had access — confirms her impression 
that she arrived at Tops Island on the twentieth 
of May. It was in the fourth week of her stay 
that the island schooners began to arrive, of which 
the third carried the little unwelcome stranger, of 
whom Madame longed to be quit. But although 
three schooners came within a week, the much- 
desired fourth, for whose dirty sails Madame looked 
out so anxiously, tarried until the occasion for its 
employment vanished with the flying days. Dur- 
ing this lamentable period of delay in speeding the 
parting guest, the opening rounds in the contest be- 
tween Madame and the Hedge Lawyer had been 
fought and lost — lost by Madame Gilbert. No 
longer was it possible to eject him with a boathook ; 
he had become the guest of Willatopy, and Willa- 
topy, Lord of Topsham, was also Lord of Tops 
Island. 

Looking back now over the series of incidents 
which I have to relate, I cannot but feel that there 
was some failure of adroitness in Madame’s con- 
duct of the campaign. It is true that she had no 
cards at all — except her own dominating person- 
167 


168 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


ality — and the Hedge Lawyer possessed the entire 
pack. But even so her failure to put a wide dis- 
tance in material space between the Heir of Top- 
sham and his self-appointed legal adviser is almost 
inexplicable. She must have failed through excess 
of confidence. She did not grasp the elusive in- 
consistency of Willatopy^s undeveloped mind. She 
believed that the infiuence of his dead white father 
would remain ineradicable — she conceived that it 
was bitten into steel instead of into soft South Sea 
wax — and she was misled utterly by the violence 
of Willatopy’s first onslaught upon the managing 
indispensable clerk. When seated at that break- 
fast on the shore, she had torn with her feminine 
claws the quivering flesh of the miserable Hedge 
Lawyer, she had judged him to be a cowardly fool 
who could be readily frightened away from his 
purpose. He was no coward, and a long way from 
being a fool. A man needs more than the average 
equipment of Cockney cunning to become, at thirty- 
two, the managing clerk of a firm of speculative 
lawyers. This fellow, John Clifford, possessed the 
quick shrewdness of the City’s streets, and the 
indomitable persistence of a man whose profession- 
al advancement depended upon his own unscrupu- 
lous ability. His employers had promised, ere he 
set sail for the Torres Straits, that his return to 
London with Willatopy as a dazzling and valu- 
able new client, would mark his own promotion to 
the status of junior partner. He had everything 
to gain by persistence, and nothing to lose except 
his life. He was sufficiently astute to realise that 
Madame’s threats were vain persiflage; that she 
was helpless if he chose to remain on the Island, 


THE CAMPAIGN OPENS 


169 


and that the mind of a half-caste savage might, by 
adroit moulding, become receptive of strange and 
flattering impressions. He held all the cards — 
those which we know of, others which he played 
later. As he dried on the blazing beach, after Ma- 
dame had left him, he determined to hang on at any 
risk from Willatopy’s spear and the rude hands of 
Madame Gilbert’s sailors, until he had won over 
to his side the wandering intelligence of the Lord 
of Topsham. 

“ After all,” muttered Clifford to himself, he is 
an English Lord, and it is a very great thing to be 
an English Lord.” Madame he already hated — 
which is not surprising. She had not exactly culti- 
vated his favour. He did not know that she had 
any interest in opposing his plans for the transfer 
of Willatopy to England, and he did not anticipate 
serious opposition from her when proof was offered 
of Willatopy’s legal heirship. That proof — copies 
of the registers in Thursday Island — was in his lost 
suit case. Also the light flannel clothes which his 
damp blackness made urgently desirable. So the 
first step taken by John Clifford in his campaign 
was to hunt for that case which he had flung away 
in his flight from the terrible fish spear. 

Had Madame realised at the beginning how 
rapidly the atmosphere would change, how quickly 
the wild ingenuous boy Willatopy would become in- 
terested in the adroit cunning man, John Clifford, 
she might have acted with her customary and ruth- 
less illegality. On that first morning she could 
easily have persuaded Willatopy to convey the in- 
truder out to the Humming Top, and could have 
held him there inactive until a convenient moment 


170 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


arrived for carrying him back to Thursday Island. 
Adequately frightened, Clifford might have been 
prevailed upon to set sail for home, alone, but I 
doubt whether this temporarily drastic course 
would have availed for long. The firm of poachers 
in St. Mary Axe could not indefinitely have been 
denied access to their prey on Tops Island. After 
Madame and her yacht had gone, John Clifford, 
or another, would have returned. Willatopy, as the 
half-caste Heir of Topsham, was too attractive a 
bait for lawyers to have been left for many months 
in the security of his island solitude. Roger Gate- 
path, who understood his own profession, was con- 
vinced that the legal vultures of London would 
speedily discover and fasten upon the profitable 
pigeon of the Torres Straits. 

Clifford found his suit case wdthin the fringe of 
woodland where first he had encountered Willa- 
topy. And as he stooped to pick it up, a heavy 
hand smote him upon the back. It was Willatopy 
again. The boy had been watching the breakfast 
party of two, and now that Clifford was alone in- 
terposed his dark powerful figure between the 
lawyer and the beach. 

“ This time,” said he, smacking his lips, there 
will be no Madame Gilbert.” 

Why should you chase me again? ” asked Clif- 
ford, who feared the boy less now that he had break- 
fasted. Besides, Willatopy no longer carried the 
fish spear. ‘‘ Why should you chase me, my lord? 
I am your friend, and have come to make you a 
very rich and great lord in England.” 

Willie frowned. I am verv rich now. You 
English are cannibals. You want to get me away 


THE CAMPAIGN OPENS 


171 


that you may kill and eat me. My father said that 
the English devoured one another.’^ 

That meant, my lord,” said Clifford, that the 
English try to take money from one another.” 

“As they try to do in Thursday Island,” as- 
sented Willatopy. “ The English try to make me 
drink so that they may steal my money. I keep it 
in a bag tied round my waist. Miles and miles of 
shore and forest are mine, my banker has piles and 
piles of my silver, all in bags. It comes from 
England. The brown girls love my bright blue 
eyes and the brown boys are my servants. I am 
already rich, and the lord of Tops Island. You are 
a liar.” 

“ It is a small thing,” said Clifford, “ to be the 
lord of a little island in the Straits, and to be 
master of brown girls and boys. In England you 
would be a real Lord, the Lord of Topsham; you 
would have houses, big houses, and your servants 
would be white, not brown. White women, beauti- 
ful white women, would be at your pleasure, and 
white men would obey your commands.” 

“ White women ! ” asked Willatopy, who began to 
be interested. “ Would white women love my blue 
eyes which are like the sky at dawn? ” 

“They would, my lord. And if you wish to 
marry one of them she would feel honoured by 
your choice.” 

“ I don’t want to marry one, just yet,” replied 
Willatopy indifferently. “ If they loved my bright 
blue eyes, and were to me as are my brown girls, 
that would please me.” 

“ You are a great Lord, and there would be no 
lack of beautiful white women to seek your favour,” 


172 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

said Clifford, whose little close-set eyes began toi 
twinkle. He was progressing. 

“ I have a very fine hut,” observed Willie. It 
is thatched with sago palm. There is not a finer hut 
in the islands.” 

^^In England you would have big houses, not 
huts,” said Clifford. ‘‘Big houses with many 
rooms.” 

“ I do not like English houses,” said Willatopy. 
“ The walls are iron and roofs are iron. They are 
painted white and glare in the sun. I have seen 
them on Thursday Island.” 

“ Those are not real houses, my lord. Your lord- 
ship’s chief house in Devonshire has red stone walls 
and a roof of burnt clay tiles. It is a splendid 
house, hundreds of years old. Green ivy grows 
upon the walls. There are many servants in the 
house and in the gardens; white servants.” 

“ I should like to have white men working in 
my garden as my servants. They are very proud. 
I should like to have the Skipper as my servant. 
I would lay my stick on his back and make him — 
skip. When I am an English Lord will the Skipper 
be my servant? ” 

“ If you wish, my lord, all men will be your ser- 
vants. In England the great lords are the masters 
of the people.” 

“ Shall I be your master? ” 

Clifford hesitated. The boy with his childlike 
savage logic was moving too fast, but it would not 
do to hesitate. He decided to go the whole hog. 

“Of course, my lord. I should be your most 
obedient humble servant.” 

“Good,” said Willatopy. “Then since B ain 


THE CAMPAIGN OPENS 


173 


already a great English lord you are now my ser- 
vant. I should like to see a white man working in 
my garden under the hot sun and jumping when 
I lay my stick upon him. You shall work in my 
garden. Come.” 

Certainly, my lord, with the utmost pleasure. 
But may I first change my clothes? I have some 
others in this suit case.” 

Clothes? ” cried Willatopy contemptuously. 
‘‘ It is always clothes with you foolish white people. 
When I go with Madame in a boat she makes me 
wear my trousers, though I throw them off when I 
plunge into the water. Madame will never swim 
like Joy and Cry if she always wears that tight 
blue bathing dress. Now that I am a great English 
Lord, all men and women shall be my servants, 
and shall do what I command. Put on your fool- 
ish trousers, white man, and come with me. I will 
make you labour in my garden, and presently when 
the sun grows hot at noon you will be glad to 
put them off for coolness. For now that you are 
my servant, I shall make you work very hard.” 

“ I cannot work too hard in your service, my 
lord,” replied Clifford obsequiously. He had been 
successful beyond all expectation, and was willing 
to sweat copiously in Willie’s garden as a sacri- 
fice to the High Gods. 

Meanwhile, Madame Gilbert had changed into 
the white crepe de chine and muslin gear which was 
her toilet on land and in the yacht. She sat in the 
entrance of her big tent, smoking Kussian ciga- 
rettes, and mildly wondering what had become of 
Clifford, the sharks’ food.” She anticipated with 
some pleasure hearing the howls of a dog which 


174 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


would announce the hollow emptiness of his 
stomach. She intended to feed him sparingly as 
evidence of her punctilious hospitality, though 
under her austere regimen there would be no mar- 
gin for pride and fatness. And while she smoked 
there, ignorantly idle, Clifford had fought and won 
the first and most difficult battle in his campaign. 
He was already the victor, though for long hours 
he sweated outrageously in Willie’s garden while 
that lordly task-master looked on, and now and 
then administered painful stimulus. J ohn Clifford 
was, I am convinced, almost flattered by receiving 
upon his servile, middle-class back the haughtily 
administered blows of an undoubted Baron of an- 
cient lineage. 

It was not until late that afternoon that Madame 
Gilbert had an opportunity to perceive the changed 
relations between the Hedge Lawyer and his 
baronial client. There had been no starving yelps 
from the beach, and though she had despatched her 
steward to look for the little stranger, the man of 
food had returned with his supplies undevoured. 
None of the sailors had seen the black-coated in- 
truder, and Madame began to hope that Willatopy, 
true to his instincts, had completed the despatch 
of John Clifford, and had consigned his remains to 
his brother sharks of the bay. Madame, I regret to 
say, has no respect for the lives of those whom she 
dislikes. When she acted as the lawyer’s shield in 
the early morning, she had not yet made his pro- 
fessional acquaintance. Afterwards, Willatopy 
might have carved him into pieces if he chose. 

In the late afternoon, Madame was roaming in 
search of some rare tropical flowers which grew 


THE CAMPAIGN OPENS 


175 


at the head of the bay when she came upon Willa- 
topy, attended at a respectful distance by a bare- 
headed and bare-footed menial dressed in grey 
flannels. 

Hullo, Willie,’’ cried Madame, not recognising 
Clifford in this new incarnation, “ whom have you 
picked up? ” 

This, Madame,” replied Willatopy with 
hauteur, is John, my white slave. He works much 
better than my brown boys, and I shall keep him 
on my island. He has hoed the weeds all day in 
my garden, and I have given him food in payment. 
Now I am taking him to my yawl that he may 
clean it properly inside and polish up the brass- 
work. John, can you clean my yawl properly, so 
♦hat the brass shines?” 

Yes, my lord. Certainly, my lord,” said John, 
cocking an eye at Madame, in which she detected 
some light of derisive humour. 

^^You had better,” said Willie ominously. 
am a great English Lord, and most particular. If 
you do not work properly, I shall throw you over- 
board. The sharks will get you.” 

As your lordship pleases,” responded John Clif- 
ford. 

Madame, frowning deeply, watched the two fig- 
ures — the lord marching: ahead with the villein 
humbly following — embark in Willatopy’s collaps- 
ible boat, and row out to the yawl, which lay at 
anchor at the head of the bay. Willatopy would 
sail her in or out over the bar when the tide was 
high, though even he dared not push her through 
the rollers which broke on the bar when the water 
was at its lowest. JMadame realised instantly that 


176 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Clifford, by cunning flattery, bad turned her flank 
and captured the interest of Willatopy. It was 
a new experience for the brown youth to possess 
an obsequious white slave who sweated at his 
orders, and who addressed him as “lord” and 
“ lordship ” in every sentence. The Baron of Top- 
sham was beginning to believe that he must be 
something out of the common way if a white 
stranger would come all the way from England to 
call him lord, to work in his garden, and to clean 
the brass of his yacht. He supposed that a Lord 
in England was a kind of headman in a village or 
the chief in a tribe. Only, as the English were very 
rich and very proud, a Lord in England must be 
much more exalted than any man in the Straits — 
except, of course, the Administrator in Thursday 
Island, or Grant, the banker. He marched with 
his head held high, ordered John to row the collaps- 
ible boat — ^which job from long practice on the 
Thames in summer he achieved tolerably — and, 
after the yawl had been boarded, directed John 
towards the objects of his labour, and surveyed 
his operations from a critical distance. Clean- 
ing the yawl was the one job of work which the 
Rich and Idle Willatopy had hitherto undertaken 
with his own hands. He had cared for the yawl 
as a Sportsman cares for his gun or his horse, and 
as a golfer cares for his clubs. It was, however, 
;much pleasanter to superintend the labours of 
John. 

“You are clever,” he said at last approvingly. 

Not stupid like my brown boys. I shall not go to 
England. I will be a great Lord in my island, and 
you shall stay with me always as my slave. That 


THE CAMPAIGN OPENS 


177 


wliite girl, Marie, who looks at me sideways — ^so— 
with eyes that bite, I will ask Madame to give her 
to me. Now that I am an English Lord, and no 
longer a brown Hula of Bulaa, the girl Marie shall 
kiss my feet.” 

“ You will never be really a great Lord unless 
you go to England where all the men and women 
are white slaves of the Lords who rule them,” said 
John mendaciously. Having decided to go the 
whole hog, he did not spare decoration upon the 
beast. Here you will be always Willatopy, the 
brown boy. There beyond the wide sea you will be 
the Right Honourable William Toppys, Twenty- 
Eighth Baron of Topsham.” 

My father, the Honourable William Toppys, 
was a great Chief here on his island. I cannot be 
greater than my father.” 

You can be, and. you are,” said John Clifford 
earnestly. Your father was a younger son, never 
a great Lord. You are the Head of the House, 
Head of the ancient Family of Toppys. Even Sir 
John Toppys, who owns the Humming Top yonder, 
will be your servant.” 

Huh ! ” cried Willatopy. Is the yacht also 
mine? I will throw the Skipper, he who called me 
‘ nigger,’ and scorns me, I will throw him into the 
sea, and sail the Humming Top myself. It will be 
better even than my yawl.” 

No,” explained John, who had started Willa- 
topy’s mind working, and was alarmed where it 
would fetch up. No. The yacht is not yours. It 
belongs to Sir John Toppys, not to you.” 

But if I am the Lord of Topsham, it must be 
mine,” roared Willie. 


178 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


No,” repeated John, and tried to explain. 

But Willatopy, with cries of '' Liar, liar, liar,” 
fell upon his white slave, and beat him severely. 
And so John Clifford discovered, very early in his 
campaign, that the man who would teach the Eng- 
lish law of inheritance to a half-caste and fully 
logical heir, runs a grievous risk of being mangled 
by his pupil. 

There,” said Willatopy, as he picked up the 
crumpled body of John Clifford by the slack of its 
breeches, and hammered it on the yawPs deck. “ If 
the yacht is not mine, I cannot be the Lord of Top- 
sham, and you are a liar and a cannibal. Die- 
cannibal.” 

‘‘ You can get another,” shrieked Clifford. A 
better one than the Humming Top.” 

What is that? ” cried Willatopy, and paused 
while yet some life remained unhammered out on 
the yawPs deck. 

When you are a very rich Lord,” groaned Clif- 
ford, you will be able to buy a much newer and 
finer yacht than the Humming Top.” 

Where? ” enquired Willatopy. 

‘‘In England. You will give your orders, and 
your slaves will build for you any yacht which you 
please. But you must go to England first.” 

“ I shall never go to England,” said Willatopy. 
Yet he desisted from the hammering of John Clif- 
ford, and his tone lacked its customary resolution. 

It had been an arduous day for the Hedge 
Lawyer. Yet I think that he was well content. In 
a few hours, at the price of much sweat and many 
aching bopes^ he had powerfully stirred up the 


THE CAMPAIGN OPENS 


179 


soul of Willatopy so that it would never resettle in 
its old simple contented form. He had driven be- 
lief into the half-white, half-brown mind of the 
once happy boy that beyond the wide seas, over 
in that England whence his father had fled, he him- 
self had become a man of consequence. His poor, 
childlike brain boiled and threw up visions in its 
steaming vapours. White women at his pleasure, 
white men as his slaves, splendid yachts at his 
orders, big stone houses with many, many rooms — 
the big houses left him cold, but to the other visions 
he could give something of warm concrete form. 
Marie who made eyes at him, John who slaved for 
him, the yacht better even than the splendid Hum- 
ming Top — these would all be his, and they were 
but an earnest of greater delights to follow. The 
round world and all that was therein would lie 
beneath his brown feet if only he would go to 
England and become, in his own unchallengeable 
right, the Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham. 
Already the impressions left by the father upon 
the small soft mind of the twelve-year-old boy were 
beginning to yield under the moulding hand of 
the white slave John. Already the white, restless 
strain in his blood, which throughout his life had 
reposed dormant, was beginning to bestir itself 
within him. He tossed John Clifford into the boat, 
and rowed ashore himself. He drove Clifford be- 
fore him up into the woods, and left him there 
supperless and without shelter. Let him forage in 
the woods if he hungered, and seek for cover under 
the ample branches about him. 

Then Willatopy, that gallant boy of mixed blood. 


180 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


torn from his lifelong island roots by the exotic 
pressure of a cursed Heirship, ran as if devils pur- 
sued to the tent of Madame Gilbert, and bursting 
in, flung his naked body at her feet. Never before 
had he entered without leave. And Madame, see- 
ing the tumult which raged in his soul, and already 
understanding something of the agony of his par- 
tial awakening, listened while the boy poured out 
the story much as I have told it here. 

Madame,” he cried at the end. What shall I 
do? What shall I do? ” 

“ Send Clifford away,” said she, and never go 
to England.” 

“ I cannot send him away,” said Willatopy. 

He is my white slave. And if he went I should 
still be an English Lord. But when a schooner 
calls he shall go. And I will never go to England. 
My father said: ^Always stick to Hula, Willie: 
Hula is better than England.^ And I always will.” 

“That’s right,” said Madame. “You can’t go 
wrong if you follow your father. And now, Willie 
dear, go back to your own hut, and be Hula once 
more. I love Willatopy, but I should hate an Eng- 
lish Lord. He couldn’t come to my tent like this — 
without even a bootlace about his middle. But my 
dear Willatopy may wear as little as he pleases. 
Be off ; I don’t want Marie to And you here.” 

The blue eyes, so strange in the almost black face, 
flashed with a new light. 

“ Marie,” he said. “ The white Marie. If I were 
an English Lord . . .” 

Madame held up a warning hand. 

“As my lady pleases,” said the boy, smiling 


THE CAMPAIGN OPENS 


181 


almost happily, and turning about, ran from the 
tent. 

Madame sat for a long while after Willatopy had 
gone. Before her stood the austere Scotch figure of 
Grant of Thursday Island, the banker Grant who 
had loved the father and now loved the son for his 
father’s sake. His solemn words rang in her ears. 
“ White and brown blood form a bad mixture, an 
explosive mixture. A mixture unstable as nitro- 
glycerine.” Grant had declared that if drink and 
white women came into his life, Willatopy would 
be a lost soul. 

‘^We have no drink on the island,” murmured 
Madame Gilbert, and the stores of the yacht are 
safe from him. Marie dreads me too gravely to be 
a danger any more. If that lump of sharks’ food, 
Clifford, can be got away, we may pull through. 
But this inheritance of poor Willatopy’s is the very 
devil. In England it seemed a comedy shot with 
streaks of utter farce; here in Tops Island it 
borders upon tragedy. In England it would be 
. . . Mon Dieu ! To save Willatopy from that 

horror I would go some lengths, some bitter, bitter 
lengths.” 

“ Marie,” said Madame Gilbert, as the French 
girl came in. If you hear any gossip about young 
Willatopy, don’t believe it. There is a story that 
he is the rightful Lord Topsham, but, of course, 
it isn’t true. Should it come to your ears, you 
have my authority to deny it stoutly.” 

“Certainly, Madame,” said Marie, the demure 
maid. But Marie did not say that Willatopy, fly- 
ing from Madame’s tent, had fallen in with her; 


182 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


that he had told her the whole story, and that she 
had urged him to claim all the rights and privileges 
that were his. And as a foretaste in the privileges 
of a seigneur she had offered him her warm lips. 
No Marie said nothing of that to Madame Gilbert. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE SAILING OP THE YAWL 

^HE days passed, no more island schooners pnt 
in for night shelter at the entrance to the hay, 
and the Hedge Lawyer gained with every passing 
day a tighter grip upon the vagrant mind of Willa- 
topy. The Great Lord made the villein work for 
the pleasure of seeing a white man sweat in his 
service, but in the intervals of labour the two of 
them became host and guest rather than master and 
slave. And hour by hour the cunning hand of the 
lawyer, deftly kneading the soft wax of the native 
boy’s intelligence, obliterated the impressions left 
by his father’s teaching. Willatopy still declared 
at intervals that he would never go to England, but 
his tone had lost much of its old conviction. The 
once fixed resolution was degenerating into a verbal 
formula. 

For awhile Clifford stuck to the first induce- 
ments of which he had demonstrated the effective 
potency. White women at Willatopy’s seignorial 
pleasure, white men as his humble, willing slaves, 
yachts and buzz boats at his orders — Willatopy was 
salt to the bones. Then, as his grip became firmer, 
Clifford bethought him of a further engine of influ- 
ence, and devised a means of bringing it into early 
operation. Immovably bent upon the one purpose 
of bearing Willatopy as a helpless fly into the 
183 


184 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


spider’s web of St. Mary Axe — and of securing that 
junior partnership for himself — Clifford perceived 
that a corrupted, degenerate Willatopy would be a 
prey more profitable to the plunderers than the 
healthy, shrewd sportsman of Tops Island. Wholly 
unscrupulous, it was nothing to him that a brave 
human soul should be lost. Willatopy was in his 
eyes not a human soul, but a much-desired client. 
After having been won over and despoiled in the 
interests of St. Mary Axe, the Twenty-Eighth Lord 
of Topsham might go to the Devil as fast as he 
pleased. The more he could be prevailed upon to 
dip into the Toppys estates — no great property by 
modern standards — the larger would be the profits 
of Chudleigh, Caves, Caves, and Chudleigh, poach- 
ers and speculators in law. I am no effusive ad- 
mirer of Roger Gatepath, the solicitor of peers and 
princes, but the dingy honesty of Gatepaths was 
as driven snow in comparison with the black foul- 
ness of Chudleighs. 

One morning, while running to her shark-proof 
creek for the customary dip after her physical exer- 
cises — Madame never neglected P.T. under any 
pressure of engagements, and to this persistence in 
muscular well-doing attributed her exuberant 
health and appetite — one morning early, Madame 
perceived that the mooring station of the yawl was 
empty. Upon her return she was informed that 
Willatopy, accompanied as always by his white 
slave John, had sailed at dawn with the first of the 
ebb. Ching, who had spent the night in the escort 
tent, and had been early astir, had watched through 
his binoculars the pair go forth towards the bar. 
Madame concluded that Willie, tired of making 


THE SAILING OF THE YAWL 


185 


John sweat in his garden, had borne him off upon 
an island cruise for the pleasure of harrying the 
white man’s stomach. John hated the heaving 
ocean, and had suffered horribly on his trip from 
Thursday Island in the schooner. John, in Ma- 
dame’s judgment, could not have gone willingly, 
and would soon prevail upon Willatopy to return. 
But in this view Madame was wrong. John Clif- 
ford, bad sailor though he was, had braved the 
swell and tide rips of the uneasy Straits that he 
might bring into operation that further engine of 
influence upon whose effectiveness he placed sure 
confidence. 

A day and a night passed, and yet another day 
and night. The yawl did not return. Madame’s 
apprehension swelled into panic. It was, of course, 
absurd to suppose that a navigator of Willatopy ’s 
competence had suffered a marine disaster in his 
own familiar Straits at the settled season of the 
south-east trade. Anxiety of that kind was absent 
from Madame’s thoughts. Her fears took an alto- 
gether different line. She was obsessed by the dread 
lest Willatopy, under the rapidly growing influence 
of Clifford, had sailed for Thursday Island en 
route for England. Grant, the banker, held con- 
siderable sums at the boy’s disposal — or, rather, 
since W’illatopy was a minor, the banker and execu- 
tor held considerable sums which he might be pre- 
vailed upon to hand over. Even if, as was not im- 
probable, Grant proved obdurate, the lawyer, John 
Clifford, must have been provided with ample cash 
or credits for traveling expenses. Ching and Ewing 
were both ashore, and she commanded their at- 
tendance. 


186 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


The Devonshire ship captain and the Glasgow 
engineer had heen close friends during half their 
lives, and habit had made them inseparable. In 
temperament, as we have seen, they were far apart. 
Though sprung from kindred races — there is no 
great difference in blood between the Lowland Glas- 
gow Scot and the West Country Englishman — 
they were typical representatives of distinct 
branches of the British stock. The soft and bounti- 
ful Devon produces sailors rather than engineers ; 
the harsher and leaner North produces engineers 
rather than sailors. I cannot stop now to explain 
why. In association, Ching and Ewing were com- 
plementary, the one to the other. Both of them 
loved Madame Gilbert, but their affection, though 
sincere, was too platonic to excite serious rivalry. 
They would dine together in the big saloon of the 
yacht — at a table which had accommodation for 
twelve persons- — and discuss over Sir John’s port 
the merits of the gracious lady who had betaken 
herself to the shore. Later on they would carry 
the discussion to the smoke-room where the three 
had so often sat and applied their foot rules to the 
universe during the long voyage out from England. 
Every few days, moved by a common impulse which 
Ewing shamelessly avowed and Ching sought to 
conceal, they would disembark and cast up in Ma- 
dame’e camp. It was understood that both re- 
mained in the yacht at their unexacting care and 
maintenance duties, or both revelled in Madame’s 
welcome smiles. They took their duties and their 
pleasures in company. 

‘‘My friends,” said Madame, smiling and af- 


THE SAILING OF THE YAWL 


187 


fecting a levity which she just then did not feel, 
lend me your ears. 

The time has come La Gilbert said, 

To give you a surprise. 

To tell of yachts and reefs and tents, 

Of blackamoors and peers, 

And why she’s come to this far land. 

And what it is she fears.” 

As a piece of impromptu poetry,” said Ewing, 
yon is no so bad. If it is impromptu, about which 
I have my doubts. And since my home is in Pais- 
ley, where all the poets come from, my judgment 
is creetical.” 

Ching shot one penetrative glance at Madame, 
and perceptibly paled under his weather-beaten 
skin. 

Further,” went on Ewing cautiously — ^he could 
babble as gleefully and interminably as Madame 
herself — further, I question the judeecious use of 
the wor-r-d ‘surprise.’ In the leeterary sense its 
employment is bad, for it does not rhyme, and as a 
statement of fact it is erroneou-s. I will not say 
that I cannot be surprised by anybody in the 
wur-r-ld, though they that have tried to astonish 
me have been up against a sair obstacle. What 
I assert now is that Madame Gilbert has no surprise 
for me, and little enough for Ching.” 

“Wait,” warned Madame, with assurance. “I 
have not yet spoken. The worst of talking to you, 
Alexander, is that one can never wedge a wur-r-d 
in.” 

“ Go canny, lassie,” proceeded Ewing. “ Go 
canny. Be not over boastful. You have been a 


188 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


bonny actress all these weeks past, but not so bonny 
that you can deceive Sandy Ewing. I had my sus- 
peecions from the first when that Willatopy boy re- 
vealed to us the secret of his bairth. And since 
then I’ve been conning my eye over the bit regis- 
ters in Thursday Island.” 

’Tis a wash out,” admitted Madame. I have 
not seen those famous registers myself, but I un- 
derstand that they would convince a brazen image.” 

They are as tight as a drum and as adhesive as 
a pepper plaster. The joints of them are steam 
tight to any pressure. You could na shift them 
with T.N.T. My metaphors may be a wee bit mixed, 
there is nothing of confusion about those registers. 
If you would like to see fair copies, I have them 
now in my hip pocket. Three half-crowns they 
cost me — for the certeeficate of the registrar. It 
was a turrible expense.^’ 

You are a great man, Sandy,” said Madame. 

The Scots were ever a grand people, and Sandy 
Ewing is one of the grandest among them. Primus 
inter Pares, But a wumman of your perspicacity, 
though a foreigner and a Roman, will not have 
neglected to obsairve that we are of a modesty be- 
yond belief. We, none of us, ever blow our own 
trumpets.” 

Never,” assented Madame. ^^You employ a 
steam syren.” 

Then it be all true,” groaned Ching, who had 
remained silent during this interchange. Except in 
the speech of his profession, his tongue was inflex- 
ible. The babble of his friends broke upon him as 
the sea foam on an immovable rock. “ Then it be 


THE SAILING OF THE YAWL 


189 


all true. That Moor be the rightful Lord of Tops- 
ham.” 

It is true,” said Madame gently. We must 
make the best of it, Captain.” Much as Madame 
Gilbert admired and respected the solid merits of 
Robert Ching, she never relaxed towards him her 
form of address. He was always Captain.” The 
Chief Engineer had long since become the Alex- 
ander” of reproof or the Sandy” of familiar con- 
verse. One may respect, and in emergency cling 
to, an immovable rock. But one does not pat it 
familiarly. 

Whatzimever be us vur to do? ” wailed Ching, 
reverting in distress to the peasant dialect of his 
youth. 

I do not hold,” put in Ewing, that it is for 
us to do anything. I am a Leeberal, a good Scots 
Leeberal. In Paisley, where my home is, and where 
the poets come from, we have always been stead- 
fast, unshaken Leeberals. No argument can shift 
us. For ten years past we have done our Leeberal 
best to pull down the House of Lords, and Willa- 
topy is a damn sight better than most of the scum 
of them. His skin is an accident of bairth. If his 
skin had come as white as his eyes are blue he 
would have been a vairy presentable Head for the 
House of Toppys. He has, it seems to me, all the in- 
stincts of the Idle Rich, and what more can you 
Tories want? He is a grand pilot and a very hardy 
sailor and sportsman. His eye for the gur-r-ls is 
worthy of the loftiest aristocrat. It is nothing but 
the brown epidermis which sets Ching here groan- 
ing like a gravid cow, and Madame bewailing the 
undoubted legitimacy of a Topy heir.” 


190 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

Not quite/’ objected Madame, though she was 
impressed by the Scot’s shrewd analysis. I admit 
that if Willatopy had been born white, or as light- 
skinned as his sisters, his lawyers at home would 
long ago have summoned him to claim his peerage. 
His half blood would not then have made the 
Family a butt for ridicule. But to me his half 
blood and not his colour is an occasion for genuine 
distress. It is because Willatopy here in his own 
Tops Island is so artless and attractive a creature, 
that I dread the effect of his transfer to England 
and his succession to what still is, even in these 
democratic days, an eminence ringed about with 
peculiar and dangerous temptations. Let me .give 
you the opinion of a man — one of your own coun- 
trymen, Sandy — who knew the father well, and 
feels the gravest apprehensions lest the son should 
come to utter wreck.” Then Madame, in the frank 
fashion which draws men’s hearts to her, repeated 
that conversation with Grant of Thursday Island, 
which I have recounted in a previous chapter. She 
kept back nothing. As she spoke of the neglected 
deposits of osmiridium — at fifty pounds an ounce — 
Ewing shrieked as a man tortured in the most ten- 
der nerve centres of his being. As she told of the 
death of William Toppys, and of the twelve-year- 
old son’s desperate voyage with the father’s corpse 
lashed to the yawl’s deck, her hearers fell silent, 
and she could see that both men were deeply moved. 

“ Good lad,” whispered Ching, who hated Willa- 
topy. 

Good lad,” whispered Ewing, who liked him. 
As Madame proceeded and painted in her forcible 
vivid English the twin demons which threatened 


THE SAILING OF THE YAWL 


191 


the half-caste boy, torn from his native island en- 
vironment, the men followed her words with grave 
assent. Both of them in their wanderings over the 
wide world had seen men and women of the black 
and brown races wither and die at the touch of 
white vices. 

The story drew to its end. 

^‘He was a circumspections man, yon Grant,” 
said Ewing with approval. good Scot and 

vairy intelligent.” 

He was right, Madame,” agreed Ching. It is 
not the brown skin but the unstable half-blood 
which is the peril. We must keep away drink and 
white women from — his young lordship.” 

It was a tremendous concession from a man like 
Ching. The “ Moor” whom he detested had become 
the young lordship” from whose stumbling foot- 
steps must be withdrawn the perilous rocks of 
offence. 

But can we? ” enquired Madame Gilbert anx- 
iously. He is a boy and very masterful. We can- 
not hold him in leading strings. Already my in- 
fluence over him is waning. The seductions of John 
Clifford are more potent than the friendly, almost 
maternal, warnings of Madame Gilbert. I could, if 
I pleased, by working on his boyish virile passions, 
make him crawl at my feet and eat out of my hand. 
But to what end, and for how long? I should but 
hasten the process of corruption which the Hedge 
Lawyer has begun. From me, unassailable, he 
w^ould flee to others less obdurate. And they are 
never far away even in the Straits of Torres. I 
cannot play with Willatopy. We must do what we 
can, but it is already borne in upon me that we seek 


192 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


to achieve the impossible. Already, these two days 
since, Willatopy has gone in the yawl with Clifford. 
It was for that reason I summoned you, and an- 
nounced the surprise which our Alexander had so 
completely anticipated. I have grave fears lest 
even now J ohn Cliff‘ord has drawn Willatopy away 
to Thursday Island, thence to take ship for Eng- 
land.’’ 

^^For my part,” declared Ewing, ^‘I doubt the 
accuracy of Madame Gilbert’s prognostications. 
They do not carry conviction to my astute mind. 
The change over is too sudden. That he will ulti- 
mately be prevailed upon to depart for his English 
lordship I make no manner of doubt. But not yet. 
He is a good boy. He has a great respect and affec- 
tion for you, Madame. He worships you, Madame, 
as a gracious white goddess. As we all do, we all 
do. We are weak men, but there is nothing sinful 
in our love for you. Ching here, says little though 
he thinks a lot; and I say, maybe, more even than 
I think. But, believe me, Madame, we both of us 
love you from your bonny red hair to your dainty 
feet — which twinkle so sweetly over the sand when 
you come from your bath — and we would lay down 
our lives to presairve you from har-r-m. Willatopy 
would not have gone away to England without ask- 
ing for your leave and bidding you farewell.” 

Ching, of the inflexible tongue, murmured assent. 

Madame Gilbert, to whom the hearts of men had 
so often been as toys, was moved. 

My dear friends,” said she gently, I believe 
you, and I thank you. I have never played with 
your honest hearts, and I am proud that you should 
have given them so freely to me.” She stretched 


THE SAILING OF THE YAWL 


193 


forth a hand to each man, and first Ewing and then 
Ching touched with his lips her white fingers. 

“And if not to Thursday Island whither then 
has Willatopy gone? ” asked Madame. 

“ I do not say that he has not gone to Thursday 
Island,” replied Ewing. “ Port Kennedy, with its 
tin houses and bare dusty streets, is the one towii 
in the Straits with any number of white folk. Clif- 
ford has played on the boy^s white blood, and car- 
ried him off there to fiaunt his lordship before the 
populace. As a preliminary canter, so to speak. If 
the brown Lord of Topsham meets with favour in 
the Island, I doubt he will aspire to wider fields of 
conquest.” 

“ Very like,” agreed Ching, and then flung forth 
a speech which astonished Madame with its sharp 
sailor wit. Hitherto she had rated the Skipper as 
a dull dog. “ Willatopy will not have sailed for 
England because that would mean leaving his yawl 
at Thursday Island. Nothing would induce him to 
risk the safety of his yawl.” 

“ You are right. Captain,” cried she. “ That is 
final. The sailor, and Willatopy is a sailor born 
and bred, will cast off his mistress, but never his 
ship. He will return to us with his yawl. If later 
on he sails for England he will leave the yawl here 
in safety at her moorings. Why didn’t you think 
of that, my circumspections man, Sandy? ” 

“ I am an Engineer, not a sailor. It is engines I 
think of, not ships. They are nothing to me but 
the case for the bonny engines.” 

“ Exactly,” said Madame. “ That is just the dif- 
ference between an engineer and a sailor, between 
Devon and Glasgow. You are clever, Sandy, and 


194 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


as a man of business, you soar far beyond our poor 
comprehension. But Captain Ching here is the 
wiser man.” 

It was not very subtle, perhaps, but in this fash- 
ion Madame Gilbert put down the talkative Ewing, 
and exalted the silent Ching, and bound the hearts 
of both men to her. More than ever she felt as- 
sured that if she needed help — and the fracture of 
the laws of God and man at her behests — Ching and 
Ewing would stand immovably with her. 

Madame,” said Ching, and it was to be observed 
that when he spoke of the sea and his own craft, 
his tongue instantly loosened. “ Can you tell me 
when you propose that the Humming Top should 
cast off and sail for England? ” 

had not considered leaving. There is no 
hurry, is there? ” 

There is no immediate urgency. But it is my 
duty as Captain to make certain representations to 
my owner. We sailed in the middle of March, and 
we arrived here after a voyage of two months, most 
of it in warm weather. We have now lain for five 
weeks in a tropical tidal bay. The yacht is foul, 
very foul. The brown boys who dive under her for 
bits of silver thrown from the rail say that she 
trails weed four feet long. The teak sheathing 
which runs from bilge to bilge, and stretches from 
near the forefoot to the stern post, is uncoppered. 
It was attached rather hastily, and copper was still 
scarce after the war. The wood is proof against 
worm, but it collects weed. When we do sail — it 
is now near the end of June — ^we must make for 
Singapore, and go into dock for a clean. The Chief 
will tell you that though we do not lack for fuel, 


THE SAILING OF THE YAWL 


195 


the foul bottom will grievously increase our con- 
sumption.” 

“ That is so,” explained Ewing. I have dived 
down myself, and seen the blooming garden which 
flourishes under our bottom. We are a tropical 
curiosity. We attract every kind of growth except 
coral. If we linger much longer we shall become 
fir-r-mly attached to the sea floor. We lie in six 
fathoms, but the weeds grow like bananas. At the 
consumption which brought us here steaming eleven 
knots, we should not now make eight. And if we 
get much more foul we shall not make six. Sir 
John’s dollars will bur-r-n in grand volumes when 
we put out to sea. It goes against my conscience, 
Madame, to waste good oil on a foul ship.” 

Madame knitted her brows. Both of you know 
now how I am placed. I am a woman and curious ; 
I want to see the drama of Willatopy unfold itself 
before me.” 

So do we,” said Ching. We do not ask you to 
depart until the need grows urgent. But remember. 
We must dock at Singapore, and thence home to 
England will occupy the best part of two months. 
The Humming Top is long and narrow, with a very 
low freeboard. The bulwarks of her monkey fo’c’sle 
are not more than twelve feet above the water, and 
her stern is no more than seven. iShe can live any- 
where, but she was built for speed and fair weather 
cruising; if we ram her through the autumn gales in 
the northern hemisphere she will be a very wet and 
uncomfortable ship. The seas will be all over bridge 
and charthouse and smokeroom, and you will have 
to live battened down. You won’t like that, 


196 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Madame, and your maid Marie will yield up her 
immortal soul.” 

“ I am not worrying about Marie’s soul — or her 
stomach,” said Madame callously. How long can 
you give me? ” 

Four weeks,” said Ching firmly. If we sail 
towards the end of July we should be in English 
waters by the middle of October at latest.” 

‘‘ Make it so,” said Madame. I promise that 
you shall hoist the Blue Peter — ^is that right? — ^be- 
fore the end of July. And perhaps sooner. For at 
the rate at which events are moving, Willatopy 
may soon determine to transport his person and 
fortunes to England. At the last, if all my per- 
suasions that he should remain here fail — and I am 
afraid that they must fail — I shall offer him pas- 
sage in the Humming Top. It is fitting that the 
Lord of Topsham should enter upon his inheritance 
on board a Toppys ship. Sir John Toppys will not 
be best pleased, but if Willatopy insists, the 
haughty Family must swallow their medicine, and 
pretend that they like it. Noblesse oblige! So 
long as the Humming Top is available. Lord Tops- 
ham must not travel in a hired steamer. Besides,” 
added Madame with a smile, ‘‘I shall be able to 
keep my eye and perhaps my hand upon that detest- 
able little cad, the indispensable managing clerk. 
And if the sea should be very rough, perhaps a 
kindly Neptune might whisk him overboard.” 

If you give the word, Madame, he shall go over- 
board all right,” said Ching, the descendant of 
Plymouth buccaneers. 

No. I will not allow crime where I command. 
I am not squeamish ; in my time I have shot more 


THE SAILING OF THE YAWL 


197 


men than one or two, and when I shoot to kill, a 
soul is sped. But what I have done by way of duty, 
or in self-defence, has not been crime. LFnless he 
provoked me beyond endurance, I would not slay 
even John Clifford.’^ 

‘^If I could do a wee bit murder on the swine 
under the rose, and stuff his corpse into a firebox, 
it would not distur-r-b my slumbers,” observed 
Ewing. But men talk, men talk. If the two of 
them sail with us in the Ewnming Top, and the 
weather comes on sweet and dirty, we must put up 
powerful petitions to an all-wise Providence* 
From the look of the beast, I should judge that he 
has a taste for whisky. Now, whisky, discreetly 
administered, might help the Divine wisdom to in- 
terpose with an effective boost, when Clifford reeled 
against a lee rail. We are all in the hands of God,” 
concluded Alexander piously. 

We are a sweet crowd,” observed Madame, with 
an air of detachment. We borrow the yacht of a 
highly respectable baronet and profiteer. On the 
voyage out we convert her into a rollicking dope 
smuggler. We now contemplate petitions to the 
Almighty that He should boost a drunken Hedge 
Lawyer over our rail while on the voyage home. 
And withal, we are God-fearing members of some 
Christian Church. I, it must be confessed, am an 
indifferent Catholic. Alexander is a Scotch Presby- 
terian ...” 

An Elder when at home in Paisley,” interjected 
the Chief — “ and Captain Ching is what — a 
Plymouth Brother?” 

“ Never,” declared Ching in horror. The 


198 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Church of England for me. I will have no truck 
with sectarians.” 

“ It is a beautiful example of the essential unity 
of the Churches,” went on Madame wickedly. The 
Roman Catholic, the Presbyterian Elder and the 
zealous English Churchman are all agreed to advise 
their God to interpose for the confounding of a 
Hedge Lawyer. And if nothing happens, their be- 
lief in the efficacy of prayer will get a nasty jar. 
Our unanimity is at least some indication that in 
human judgment the little sweep were better dead. 
But, my friends, reflect that worms as noxious came 
through the war unscathed, while the best of 
Europe’s manhood perished. Let us not bank on 
the discriminating taste of the Almighty, or on the 
alertness of the Providential ear.” 

Alexander Ewing was not unwilling to plunge 
into an active theological controversy, and Ching, 
with a lightening of the eye, showed that he too 
smelled battle. But Madame waved her hand, and 
forbade reply. If she were a Catholic, I am afraid, 
as she herself admitted, that she was not a very 
good one. 

On the following evening Ching and Ewing re- 
turned to the yacht, and three more days went by 
without word of the yawl, Willatopy, or John Clif- 
ford. Then news came like the blare of a bugle 
summoning Madame to the flght. 

She had just returned from her morning swim, 
and the bathing dress, which rapidly dried in the 
sun, was still upon her body. The motor boat had 
just buzzed in through the passage of the bar, and 
brought an officer with a message. 

‘‘The Captain’s compliments,” said he, “and I 


THE SAILING OF THE YAWL 


199 


was ta tell you, Madame, that the brown boy, 
W^illatopy, with the man called Clifford, are sitting 
in the smokeroom of the yacht drinking Sir John 
Toppys^ port.” 

“ Port ! ” cried she. At this hour of the day ! ” 
Her eyes flashed, and she leapt for the tent. Upon 
her feet she slipped a pair of sand shoes, and about 
her person buckled the linen trench coat. Then 
going to her dressing case she picked out the Webley 
automatic which in her tent or in her cabin was 
never very far from her hand. She dropped the 
pistol into her right-hand pocket. 

Come,” said she to the officer. I am ready. 
Willatopy is Lord of the Island, but Madame Gil- 
bert is Lady of the Yacht. I am going to give 
Mr. John Clifford, solicitor of St. Mary Axe, a 
lesson in the laws of property.” 

“ Shall I stand by with a monkey wrench? ” 
enquired the officer eagerly. He was a young en- 
gineer. 

It will not be needed/^ said Madame serenely. 


CHAPTER XIII 


WHITE BLOOD 

'X'HE tide was at half ebb, and the trip out to the 
Humming Top much wetter than Madame had 
expected. The long Pacific rollers were already 
crashing upon the bar, and had the motor boat de- 
layed its return by half an hour, even the passage in- 
shore would have become too boisterous for safety. 
But Madame, anxious lest she should be cut off for 
more than six hours from the port-drinking intruders 
in the Humming Top’s smoke-room, gave orders that 
the surf must be faced at all hazards. So the power- 
ful little craft, driven by the full power of its eight- 
cylindered engine, gave back buffet for buffet, and 
got through, though the passenger and crew were 
soaked to the skin in the effort. Madame, in her 
bathing dress and linen trench coat, had been satu- 
rated so often since her first passage of the breakers 
with Willatopy, that she paid no heed to salt water. 
She had always loved the sea, and was becoming 
well salted. 

Ching and the apologetic steward met her at the 
top of the accommodation ladder. 

With your permission. Captain,” said she, I 
will now take charge.” And, turning to the steward, 
flung out the one word “ Explain ! ” 

“ Mr. Willatopy and his friend,” said the man, 
arrived alongside in the yawl and came aboard. 

200 


WHITE BLOOD 


201 


Mr. Willatopy said that the surf was too bad for 
the yawl to go in, and that they would wait until 
high tide in the yacht. I knew that you, Madame, 
would wish me to treat the young gentleman with 
respect, so I asked him, and his friend, to enter the 
smoke-room. A few minutes later the bell rang, 
and Mr. Willatopy said that his friend wished for 
a drink. Would I get a bottle of port? I had no 
orders, and I was aware that Mr. Willatopy is said 
to be the new Lord Topsham, so I brought the wine 
in a decanter. Then I reported what I had done to 
the Captain. He was very angry, and at once sent 
off the motor boat to fetch you. He knew that you 
would risk the surf, and was angry that you should 
have been called upon to do it. I ought to Save 
reported to the Captain before I carried out the 
young gentleman^s order.’’ 

On the whole. Captain,” said Madame, thought- 
fully, “ I am not sorry that this incident has hap- 
pened. We now know the line of Clifford’s attack, 
and can take measures to meet it. I will counter- 
attack at once.” 

She mounted the steps of the boat decks, and 
walked up to the smoke-room. She stood at the 
open door looking down upon the trespassers, who 
had already made free with nearly a whole bottle 
of Sir John’s carefully selected wine. Willie had 
his back to her, so that the Hedge Lawyer saw her 
first. His mean, thin face went white, and he tried 
to push back his chair, forgetting that it was 
screwed to the deck. Willie turned, and seeing Ma- 
dame, raised his glass. 

“ Have a drink, Madame? ” cried he. I hate 
whisky, but I like port, which John taught me to 


202 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


drink in Thursday Island. I like tumblers better 
than these silly glasses, and the sweet, sticky stuff 
we got in Thursday Island has more taste than my 
cousin’s soft thin wine. Here’s to your health, Ma- 
dame.” He emptied the glass, and pointed to the 
decanter, which was nearly exhausted. Ring the 
bell, John; Madame wants a drink.” 

But John Clifford, with those sombre, deadly 
eyes of Madame Gilbert upon him, shivered. 

“ Willie, dear,” said Madame, softly, will you 
please listen to me for a moment.” When Madame 
speaks like that there lives not a man so insensible 
as to disregard her. Willatopy passed a hand in 
rather a bewildered way across his eyes, and turned 
his chair round towards her. Then, in a stiff, auto- 
matic fashion, he rose to his feet and murmured: 

I beg your pardon, Madame Gilbert.” 

She entered the room, and sat down on the sofa. 

“ Be seated, Willie, I want to talk with you. No,” 
she added sternly to John Clifford, who was sliding 
out by the farther door. Stay where you are, law- 
yer. Sit.” She snapped out the word as one gives 
an order to a dog, and Clifford sat. 

Willie,” said Madame Gilbert, in that soft, com- 
pelling voice of hers, which none can resist. On 
the island yonder in a tent I live with my servants. 
The land is yours. Any day, at any moment, you 
could tell me to go, and I should go. But while I 
live in that tent, pitched upon your land, I am your 
guest and under your protection. Would you, 
Willie, enter that tent in my absence, and give or- 
ders to my servants? Would you seat yourself, un- 
invited, at my table? ” 

Willatopy passed a hand again over his flushed 


WHITE BLOOD 


203 


cheek and heavy eyes. You are my guest on the 
Island, Madame, my honoured guest. I would not 
approach your tent without your permission. You 
know that, Madame.” 

‘‘I know it, Willie. But think a little. This 
yacht is mine, lent to me by your cousin, Sir John 
Toppys. All the men on board are my servants. 
The yacht is as much my home as the tent ashore. 
An English gentleman, Willie, does not go into the 
house of his friend and order wine to be placed 
before him; he waits to be invited, Willie. Still 
less does he bring another, a stranger, with him. 
You cannot be an English Lord, Willie, unless you 
begin by becoming an English gentleman.” 

Willatopy looked intently at Madame all the 
while she was speaking, and his eyes lost their 
blurred look. As the fumes of the unaccustomed 
port cleared away, the native sense of courtesy in 
his brown and white blood revived. He sprang 
from his chair, dropped on the floor at her feet, and 
laid his black, frizzy head upon her knees. 

“ Forgive me, Madame,” cried he. I was — a 
perfect hog.” 

“ Willie dear,” said Madame, as she passed her 
hands gently over the long frizzled hair, and ar- 
ranged the tresses neatly on her lap. Now that 
you are an English Lord, you will really have to 
get your hair cut.” In this fashion the two became 
reconciled. 

Willatopy shed a vinous tear or two on Madame’s 
trench coat, and then sprang violently up as a 
thought struck him. 

^^You, John,” roared he. ^^You white slave! 
[Why did you not tell me that it was a hoggish 


204 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


thing to come on board Madame’s yacht and order 
Madame’s wine? I did not think. You are my 
white slave, and it is your job to think for me. 
Madame, have I your permission to kill John here 
in your yacht? I should like to begin at once.” 

“ I will deal with him,” said Madame. Willie, 
have you half-a-crown? ” 

Willatopy, looking puzzled, thrust his hand into 
a trouser pocket, and produced a silver coin. 

“ It is a two-shilling piece,” said he. “ Will that 
do?” 

Quite well.” Madame drew the automatic pis- 
tol from her side pocket. John Clifford cowered 
before her, screaming. “ Worm and liar,” snapped 
Madame. I am convinced that you are a hedge 
lawyer — so scurvy a wretch could be none other — 
but I will never believe that even for three months 
you were ever an English officer. Come outside and 
and look upon your death.” She drove him out on 
to the deck at her pistol muzzle. He crouched 
down by the rail, and covered his eyes with both 
hands. 

No,” said Madame. That will not do at all. 
I had not intended to slay you — just yet — but I am 
going to make you watch me shoot. As a warning. 
Take away those hands and look at me.” Her voice 
snapped at him as it had done before, and Clifford 
obeyed — as a dog obeys its mistress. He sat up by 
the rail and looked at her. 

Willie,” said Madame. Stand over there with 
your back to the sea. I don’t want anyone to be 
hurt, not even the brave lawyer. When I give the 
word, throw that coin into the air. I am going to 
show to Mr. John Clifford a little bit of trick shoot- 


WHITE BLOOD 


205 


ing which he maj bear in his remembrance — as a 
warning. I shall not hit you, Willie.’^ 

I am not afraid,” said the boy with a touch of 
pride. He did as she commanded. With his back 
to the sea, and at the word from Madame, he spun 
the florin into the air. 

She had stretched out her pistol arm, and with 
the muzzle followed the scrap of white metal which 
flew upwards sparkling in the sun. Madame de- 
clares that she never looks at her gun sights — that 
she shoots by instinct. Exactly at the instant when 
the coin stopped in act to fall, Madame’s pistol 
cracked, and the two-shilling piece, hit fairly by the 
small .25 bullet, flashed over the rail into the sea. 

Teach me to do that,” cried Willie. 

Madame returned the pistol to her pocket, and 
contemplated Clifford. 

I am a woman,” said she, and very nervous. 
My terrors, when a stranger approaches my camp, 
even by day, are lamentable. I struggle against 
them, but it is no use. My one consolation is this 
pistol, which never leaves my side, and my skill in 
its use. My nerves are so uncontrollable that I am 
sure no stranger — ^not even one so innocent of 
offence as Mr. John Clifford — is safe within pistol 
shot of me. As a friend, who would be desolated 
should an accident befall him, I say to Mr. Clifford : 
‘ keep clear of Madame Gilbert.’ Captain,” went on 
Madame, turning to Ching, who had not been far 
away during this scene, Mr. John Clifford regrets 
that he must leave us. Would you please order out 
a boat, and put him ashore over there by the man- 
groves. He will have a pleasant walk through the 
woods of a couple of miles before reaching a human 


206 


jVIADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


habitation. Contemplation is good for the penitent 
soul. And should he approach the ladder of the 
yacht again — I doubt myself if he can be persuaded 
to pay us another call — will you please give orders 
that Mada^ie Gilbert is not at home — neither is her 
port.” 

The dinghy was swung out and Clifford invited 
to enter. He turned to Willatopy. 

‘‘Are you coming too, my lord?” asked he, 
obsequiously. 

“ No,” said Willie. “ I hate walking. And your 
society does not amuse me. The brown girls on 
Thursday Island who would not touch you, when 
you sought their favours, were right. You are an 
unclean beast. Go and walk and sweat by your- 
self. I am tired, and would sleep, if Madame will 
permit.” 

He stretched himself upon the sofa bunk in the 
smoke-room, and instantly fell asleep. Madame 
sat watching the dark, quiet face, so very negroid 
now that the bright blue eyes were veiled, and 
presently Ching joined her. 

“ Captain,” said she softly. “ The white blood 
stirs, and with it the taste for white vice. Look at 
those lines under the eyes which stand out purple 
against his skin. Listen to that harsh note in his 
breath, and watch the uneasy twitch of his long, 
thin fingers. It was not in that restless fashion that 
he slept when Willatopy was our pilot and our 
guest. His Heirship lies heavily upon him already, 
and its burden has scarcely begun. Do you still 
hate Willatopy, Captain Ching? ” 

“ No, Madame. Since you told us of the black 
boy’s devotion to his white father, I have hated 


WHITE BLOOD 


207 


him no more. I wish to help his young lordship 
if I can.” 

“ He will need all our help,” said Madame, sigh- 
ing. “ The evil that Grant prophesied is coming 
upon him. If it is port to-day, it will be brandy 
to-morrow. He hates whisky now, but for how long 
will his palate reject it? Clifford will steep him in 
foul liquors if he can. For the moment Willatopy 
is unspoiled. When I spoke in tones of reproof, he 
fell at my feet and kissed my coat. He implored my 
forgiveness. But for how long can I fight against 
the wiles of Clifford? ” 

‘‘What strikes me the most forcibly may seem 
to you a little thing,” said the Skipper. “Willa- 
topy arrived here in his yawl at an hour when he 
could not pass the bar for the fury of the swell. He 
came aboard us, and said that he had forgotten the 
state of the tide. Think of that for a sailor and 
pilot like him. When he was conning the Humming 
Top, Madame, he knew the tide level to an inch, but 
now he forgets that at certain states his own yawl 
cannot sail over his own bar. I think that the pair 
of them must have been lying up and drinking most 
of the night, Madame.” 

“ Captain, you are very wise. What you say 
frightens me.” 

Willatopy stirred upon the sofa and groaned. 

“ John,” he murmured, “ you said the wine was 
not strong, and did no harm. But my head burns, 
and I cannot see. My father said ...” 

His voice trailed away, and he slid into half- 
drunken unconsciousness. 

“ That Hedge Lawyer is a cunning devil,” said 
Madame. “ It looks as if he represented port as a 


208 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


temperance drink, favoured by the strictest mis- 
sionaries. I wondered a little why port was chosen 
for the first introduction to alcohol. Captain Ching, 
it sticks in my mind that my patience and courtesy 
towards that stranger will fail me, and that he will 
get hurt. When I saw him sitting opposite Willa- 
topy in this room, making free with my yacht and 
my wine, my hand went to my gun. He saw death 
in my eyes, and wilted.’’ 

^‘It is a job for us, not for you,” said Ching 
deliberately. Shall we take him out into the 
Straits — and lose him? Not a man aboard of us 
would give away the secret. My conscience would 
not worry me. I would as soon drown that devil 
as a rat.” 

‘^We may come to it. One’s views upon the 
sanctity of human life change with the circum- 
stances. I do not hold it crime to slay Clifford if 
the killing of him would save Willatopy. But it 
would be a postponement, that is all. Other poach- 
ers would find him out and we should not then be 
at hand to interpose for his protection. There is 
an alternative which appeals to me more strongly. 
Clifford is away toiling through the woods yonder. 
Willatopy is here with us. Suppose, while he sleeps, 
that we send in for my camp gear, ship it on board, 
cast off our moorings, and sail immediately for 
England. Willie would then have been cut loose 
from the unscrupulous poachers of St. Mary Axe. 
I would hand him over to the Trustees of the 
Toppys estates, who must give his claims full recog- 
nition, and keep a constant watch upon him in Eng- 
land. Disaster, degeneracy, will fall upon him, I 
fear. They are the present perils of his explosive 


WHITE BLOOD 


209 


half blood. But at least he would have been pre- 
served from deliberate corruption. Will you please 
summon Alexander. He is shrewd and vairy cir- 
cumspections. Let us have his opinion.’’ 

Alexander considered the proposal with a grave, 
judicial countenance. He had been below tinkering 
with his adored engines — painting the lily of the 
high-speed turbines — ^and had seen nothing of the 
expulsion of John Clifford. When told how Ma- 
dame had plugged a two-shilling piece with a .25 
pistol bullet, he expanded with admiration. 

“ Yon Clifford will go in fear of his dirty life,” 
said he with satisfaction. “ He will scuttle for the 
woods when the shadow of our sweet Madame falls 
across his track. You are a bonny shooter, but 
don’t puncture the vermin if you can keep your wee 
gun off him. I like fine your new plan. There is a 
flavour of lawless kidnapping about it which ap- 
peals, which appeals. Both Ching and me are with 
you up to the neck. Will you send ashore now for 
the gear? ” 

“You can’t,” interposed Ching shortly. “’Tis 
close on low water, and the bar is not passable.” 

“ Oh ! ” groaned Madame. “ Like Willie, I had 
forgotten the tide.” 

“It’s a peety, a sore peety,” observed Ewing. 
“ But not an insuperable obstacle. The tents and 
the gear are worth much money ; still they belong to 
Sir John Toppys and not to us. He would be the 
loser by their being left behind, not us. The Idle 
Kich can afford losses of gear. We can maroon the 
tents as we propose to maroon the law agent.” 

“ But,” objected Ching— to the best of plans there 
is always some instrusive objection — “ what about 


210 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


my six men in the escort tent, and Madame^s maid, 
Marie? We can’t leave them behind.” 

“I will willingly leave Marie — she can console 
John Clifford if she has the stomach for him. But 
I agree that we can’t leave Ching’s men. They are 
wanted to work the yacht. Besides, after my stores 
were exhausted they would have nothing to live on 
except bananas and the produce of Mrs. Topy’s 
fowls and garden. It would be a low down trick to 
play on the poor dears. We must confide Willie 
and his future to the hands of Fate. If he stays 
asleep until the tide rises, and we can evacuate my 
camp, we will accept the omen, up anchor, and sail 
to-night for home. Willie himself shall be our 
Pilot. But if not, not. I am a fatalist, and shall 
not grumble either way. Will you please get the 
boats ready. Captain, so that no time may be lost. 
We must do our bit to help the workings of Fate, 
but I shan’t interfere to the extent of locking Willie 
up, and kidnapping him by force.” 

But Fate had already decided. Willatopy awoke 
at about one o’clock, announced that hunger 
devastated him, and for the first time lunched with 
Madame and her companions in the saloon. As 
Willatopy he had messed with the junior ofiScers; 
as the Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham he sat at 
Madame’s right hand in the saloon. There was no 
pretence now that he was a byblow of Will. Toppys. 

It was interesting to observe Willie at table. He 
had been brought up strictly as a native of the 
Straits, and in his father’s hut had lived exactly 
like other brown boys. Now and then, during his 
visits to Thursday Island, he had sat at table in 
rough company. Once or twice, I believe, the 


WHITE BLOOD 


m 

banker Grant had invited him to tea with his wife 
and family. In the usages of white society, with 
these small exceptions, Willie was wholly unversed. 
Yet no one watching him now, seated beside Ma- 
dame, and talking freely with Ching and Ewing, 
would have suspected the slenderness of his social 
equipment. He never touched knife or fork or plate 
until by observation he had seen how the others 
used them. He watched his companions as nar- 
rowly as he watched the reefs by which, and over 
which, he sailed his yawl. His method was slow, 
but it was very sure. In the course of time he satis- 
fied his hunger, and all through the meal he never 
committed one noticeable gaucherie. 

‘^The boy is white and a gentleman,’’ thought 
Madame. What a pity it is that his skin did not 
come as pale as that of his sisters. But for that 
most unfortunate coffee-coloured epidermis, there 
might be a chance for him after all. The brown 
skin together with the explosive mixture in his 
blood are too overwhelming a handicap to carry.” 
No wine was served by Madame’s strict orders. 

Afterwards in the smoke-room over coffee and 
cigarettes — Willie had never smoked before, but 
seemed to relish one of Madame’s favourite Kus- 
sians^ — Madame openly spoke to Willie of their 
intentions had he not awakened so inopportunely. 

It is not too late, Willie, to go now with us of 
your own free will. Lord Topsham— for you really 
and truly are Lord Topsham, a great English Lord 
— cannot for long remain on a little island in the 
Torres Straits. He will be sought out by his own 
Trustees, and by loathsome sharks of the Clifford 
breed. Now that you know the truth and your white 


212 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


blood stirs in your veins, I become convinced that 
you must go to England. Before you had gone on 
that trip to Thursday Island, I thought it possible 
that you might stay in peace here. Now I am sure 
that sooner or later you must go. And if Fate wills, 
sail with us, your friends who love you, in a Toppys 
ship. We will take you home with us, and put you 
in your lawful place.” 

But Willie said No. The wine, dying out in his 
system, had left him full of terrors. The gallant 
lad, who had fought for three days to save his god- 
like father from the devils of the sea, who until now 
had never felt fear, trembled before the unknown. 

I will never leave Tops Island,” muttered he. 

This is my home. I am a Hula, and my father 
said, ‘Always be Hula, Willie, never go to Eng- 
land.^ I cannot disobey the words of the Great 
White Chief, my father. Clifford I hate. I am 
sorry, Madame, that I did not kill him when first he 
landed on my island. It was you who saved his 
miserable life from me. In Thursday Island he 
tried to give me whisky, and, when I refused it, 
told me the sweet sticky port was good and safe to 
drink. I liked it, Madame. He brought two, three 
cases away in the yawl, and some other stuff like 
port — he called it cherry brandy. That I like too. 
It is hot and sweet. And then there is ... ” In his 
artless fashion he was about to speak of the girl 
Marie, but the white blood stirred, for the first 
time in his relations with women he felt shame, and 
the sentence was left unfinished. 

“ It is as you will,” said Madame gently. “ We 
will remain here for a little while longer. Should 
you change your mind and wish to go, here is the 


WHITE BLOOD 


213 


Humming Top at your service. We cannot sail 
without our Pilot. We should be cast away on the 
reefs for sure. You brought us to your island, 
Willie, and only you can take us away.’’ 

I will be your pilot to Thursday Island when- 
ever you wish, Madame. But no farther. I will 
return here in my yawl.” 

And what about Clifford? ” 

If he has not gone, I will cut off his head. It 
amuses me that he should be my white slave, but I 
grow weary of him. His head will smoke nicely 
over the fire in my cookhouse.” 

The afternoon drew on, and the tide rose to its 
height. Willie, looking out over the bar, decided 
that the moment for his departure had arrived. He 
went to the stern of the yacht where the yawl had 
been tied up. 

One moment,” said Madame. Those cases 
which Clifford bought? The port and the cherry 
brandy? Shall we throw them overboard, Willie? ” 

The boy’s face worked uneasily. He had tasted 
of the juice of the Californian grape and found it 
very good. He had decided not to go to England to 
claim his lordship, but had not decided to cut him- 
self loose from all white seductions. It was his 
intention to carry the cases to his island, and there 
to offer alcoholic hospitality to the girl Marie. 
Madame knew nothing of what passed through his 
opening mind. 

Shall we throw the cases into the sea? ” she 
enquired anxiously. It will be better so, Willie, 
my dear.” 

Willie did not refuse her in words. He stood 
hesitating, and then suddenly leaped over the rail. 


214 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Down he dropped true upon the yawFs deck, and 
steadied himself with one hand on the mainmast. 
In a moment he had cast off and run up the sails. 

Madame Gilbert watched the yawl fly through the 
slack water towards the bar, and heave and pitch in 
the swell. Willie took her over as a skilful rider 
lifts a horse over a gate, and slid away into the dis- 
tant recesses of the bay. 

She turned to Ching, who stood silent at hier side. 

There is something hidden,” said she. Some- 
thing that we do not know. One does not all at 
once become so fond of drink. What is that some- 
thing, Captain Ching? ” 

Ching shook his head. He did not know. If 
Alexander had been present, I do not think that 
he would have shaken his head. He might not have 
known more than was vouchsafed to Ching, but he 
would, at least, have put up a guess. Alexander, 
the circumspections man, did not lightly confess to 
being baffled. 

Willie moored the yawl at the head of the bay, 
and went ashore in the collapsible boat. On the 
edge of the beach he met Marie, who, in the absence 
of the terrible Madame Gilbert, had gained courage. 

My lord has been a long time gone,” whispered 
she, regarding him sideways with the eyes that bit. 

Marie has missed you very much.” 

You will not miss me any more,” said Willie. 
He kissed her — it was the salute of the seigneur to 
the beautiful white slave — and with his arm about 
her waist walked slowly towards the woods. 


CHAPTEE XIV 


MARIE LAMBERT 



Marie.” 


“Yes,” agreed Willie, as one stating the most 
unchallengeable of truths. Marie Lambert frowned. 
It was not the reply for which she had angled. 

A few more days had passed. Every afternoon, 
when released from attendance upon Madame Gil- 
bert, the French girl would climb up to an ap- 
pointed place on the hillside above the camp and 
there meet Willatopy. They were, she judged, safe 
from observation. Madame, when not afloat on the 
sea, stuck to the sea shore, or read books in the 
shady entrance to her tent. Never gratuitously 
active on foot, Madame rarely ascended the hill 
which formed the backbone of Tops Island. She was 
enjoying a spell of real physical laziness after her 
unremitting labours in the war. 

The bright blue eyes and dark brown skin of 
Willatopy seemed to the depraved taste of Marie to 
be the most fascinating masculine combination in 
^colour that she had ever enjoyed ; when to them was 
'added the glamour of Willie’s succession to an his- 
toric peerage, Marie felt that for once in her lurid 
career she really loved. Willie, she assured him, 
215 


216 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


occupied the whole of her capacious heart. There 
wds no room, no room at all, for junior deck and 
engine-room officers. Marie knew her mistress. 
She was well aware that a threat from Madame was 
no vain play with words. She was convinced that 
the discovery of her intrigue with Willatopy would 
mean: first, confinement in the ever-rolling yacht 
at anchor — a nauseating prospect — and finally, her 
return to France with Madame as an accuser and 
relentless enemy. Yet she risked all to sport with 
Willatopy in the woods. 

“ That is unkind,” said she. You do not love 
Marie any more.” Willatopy, who was lying at her 
feet, raised his face lazily. He permitted her, if 
she pleased, to bend over and kiss him. She did 
bend over, though conscious of some slight 
humiliation. 

What do you want? ” asked Willatopy, rather 
crossly. “ I have left my brown girls for you. 
When I was in Thursday Island, I would not look 
at them. I rejected one whom I used to love, and 
she wept bitterly. When I offered her a white man, 
John Clifford, she smacked his face. None of the 
brown girls would put up with John. All scorned 
him. He is a filthy little beast. For you, Marie, 
my white woman, I have turned my back on the 
brown girls. What more do you want? ” 

I do not wish that you should go to England 
and leave me. If you go, Madame Gilbert will take 
me away.” 

“ I have told you many times that I do not go to 
England.” 

But you are a lord, the Lord of Topsham.” 

I can be a Lord here on my Tops Island.” 


MARIE LAMBERT 


217 


I should like, Willie, to be the Lady of Tops 
Island.” 

^‘Well,” said Willatopy, knitting his brows, 

that is easy. When Madame and the yacht have 
sailed away, you shall stay here, and be my white 
Lady. My boys shall build you a fine hut thatched 
with sago palm.” 

don’t think, Willie, that I care much for a 
hut. You are rich. You have the money of your 
father, and of your uncle, the late Lord. You can 
send for men, skilful men, and build a house on this 
island fit for a white woman and her — her — 
husband.” 

“I did not say anything about a husband,” 
observed Willatopy drily. 

But Willie,” urged Marie, you are a grown 
man. Very soon you will want a home of your own 
and a wife who loves you. An English Lord must 
have a white wife, and here am I. You will never 
find a wife fonder or more beautiful than I would 
be.” 

“ I do very well as I am,” said Willie, philosophic- 
ally. 

Marie Lambert ground her teeth. She had 
thought to fascinate the brown Heir, and to twist 
him about her fingers. A marriage, at Murray or 
Thursday Island, would be as legal as a marriage 
at St. George’s, Hanover Square. If she could pre- 
vail upon Willie to marry her now, before he learned 
the value of his peerage, she would become an Eng- 
lish Lady, the Lady of Topsham. After that, there 
would be no more talk about a fine house on Tops 
Island. England, and English society, would be 
her new sphere of campaign. 


218 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


She had not, I fancy, thought of this scheme at 
the beginning, or perhaps she would have been less 
complaisant. A discreet aloofness might have 
proved a more potent inducement to matrimony 
than the free love which she had offered. Marie, 
sitting there grinding her teeth, felt that she could 
hate Willatopy as savagely as a day or two ago she 
had loved him. If she had not also feared him, 
almost as much as she feared Madame Gilbert, she 
would have let loose her vixenish rage. It was per- 
haps a little late, but, as a new weapon, she 
affected a judicious propriety. 

I should not have met you — like this, Willie, if 
I had doubted your intention to marry me. White 
women, especially French women, are not like 
brown girls. They regard their — reputation. If 
you have been playing with me, I shall not meet 
you again — much though I love you.” 

Willatopy thoughtfully considered this new de- 
velopment. To him, her speech was just foolishness, 
but in his tolerant way he tried to understand it. 
In his own small world, wives were models of vir- 
tue, but girls — and widows — were not. Marie was 
making a fuss about something, though quite what 
it was he had no idea. 

One does not marry everybody,” he said at last. 
He could think of no sentence more illuminating. 

“ I am not — everybody — or anybody,” replied 
Marie with dignity. I am a French lady, as good 
a lady as Madame Gilbert. When a man makes 
love, as you have done, to a French lady, she 
naturally thinks that he intends to marry her.” 

This was far over Willatopy’s head. It is the 
woman who proposes marriage in the Straits, and 


MARIE LAMBERT 


219 


the man who, after full consideration, gives or with- 
holds his assent. An amour, such as this one of his 
with Marie, had nothing to do with marriage as he 
understood it. A man married so that his wife 
might work for him. He could not picture the 
white Marie, in her pretty French clothes, working 
for him or anyone else. She was altogether charm- 
ing to sport with, but as a wife quite inconceivable. 
He tried to explain his simple code to Marie. It 
was not easy, for neither of them had a full com- 
mand of the English language. Their vocabularies 
were sufficient for everyday speech, or for love- 
making, but were incapable of expressing the deeper 
mysteries of social philosophy. 

Marie gathered that Willatopy would not marry 
her because she could not work in his hut or in his 
plantation, and that he had no use for a wife who 

couldn’t. If that was all 

That is nothing,” exclaimed she brightly. That 
only means that we must not live in Tops Island. 
After we are married we will go to England where 
you will be a great Lord and I shall be a great Lady. 
I shall be Lady Topsham, and I will make Madame 
Gilbert crever with jealousy.” 

^^But I am not going to England,” observed 
Willatopy, stolidly. He had fully made up his mind 
not to marry Marie, and was quite capable of con- 
tinuing his refusal indefinitely. If she turned from 
him in consequence, he would be grieved, but marry 
her he would not. 

Rather bluntly, perhaps, he conveyed this 
determination to the perceptions of Marie Lambert. 

Furious, she sprang up. Willatopy rose with her. 
She was about to rate him in voluble French when 


220 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


she remembered that he did not understand a dozen 
words of that beautiful language. And since she 
could not do justice to her emotions in English, she 
stood there gasping, tongue-tied. 

Willie smiled, and took both her hands. She 
strained from him, but in his grip she was helpless. 
Slowly he drew her close, and bent his bright eyes 
upon hers. Thus he held her. 

Let me go,” she muttered. Your eyes shine. 
They make me faint.” 

They shine like the sky at dawn,” said Willa- 
topy. “ Go back to your tent, Marie, and meet me 
here to-morrow.” He kissed her farewell, and, half 
dazed, she went without another word. 

At the appointed hour next day she came again. 
Willie was late, and when at length, gracefully 
debonair, he strolled into the clearing, Marie raged 
furiously. 

I had not intended to come again,” cried she, 
and now I am sorry that I did.” 

You could not keep away,” replied the brown 
Sultan of Tops Island. 

Bete/’ roared Marie, and burst into a passion 
of French, which broke uncomprehended about 
Willie’s ears. She then tried English, but the 
language would not flow. It is a terrible thing 
for an angry woman to possess no vehicle of 
speech. Willatopy, quite unmoved, drew out a 
packet of cigarettes and lighted one. Since his 
definite recognition by Madame and the Humming 
Top as the new Lord Topsham, he had adopted his 
white holiday clothes as a regular island wear. 
Clifford and Marie had convinced him that it was 
improper for a great white lord to go about looking 


MARIE LAMBERT 


m 

like a Hula savage. His suddenly acquired taste 
for cigarettes was satisfied by plundering the scanty 
store of the white slave John. 

Marie Lambert plucked the cigarette from his 
mouth, and fiung it down. His eyes lighted up, and 
he grappled her, crushing the thin white dress into 
her soft arms. Frightened, she struggled feebly. 
He kissed her, and she hung helpless in his arms. 

Don’t be a fool, Marie,” said Willatopy. 

He put her down on the ground and lighted 
another cigarette. Marie, conquered, no longer 
attempted to suppress this mark of his indifference. 

It was not until the time drew near when they 
must part that Marie returned to the topic of the 
previous day. Her tenure of Willatopy’s affections 
was so insecure that no moment must be wasted if 
she were to rivet him to her by the bonds of 
matrimony. 

It shall be to-morrow,” said she softly, patting 
the brown cheek, which was not far from her own. 

What will be to-morrow? ” asked he lazily. 

We will start for Thursday Island in the yawl 
— and be married there.” 

No,” said he. 

Yes. Englishmen love French girls, and all of 
them will envy the Lord Topsham with his wife 
Marie.” 

You could not work in my hut or in my garden. 
I am very rich, and do not work. But my wife 
must work very hard indeed.” 

Marie had been thinking over this aspect of Hula 
matrimony, and had her answer pat. 

You may take a brown girl as your working 


222 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

wife, if you please. She shall labour for both of 
us, you the Lord and me the white Lady.’^ 

“ One time, one wife,” replied Willatopy stolidly. 
“ I would not take a brown girl to wife until after 
I had put you away from me.” 

She need not be a real wife,” explained Marie 
eagerly. “ Just one who worked. I should be the 
real wife, of course.” 

Willatopy considered this proposal gravely. It 
had certain advantages, for, in his careless savage 
fashion, he loved the white Marie and her novel 
attractions. He was exceedingly reluctant to part 
with her. All this matrimonial fuss worried him, 
for he had some glimmering of the truth that an 
English marriage in Thursday Island — the kind of 
marriage which had bound his parents, and had 
made him the legitimate heir of Topsham — was 
something much more serious than the simple native 
ceremony of the Islands. It might not be easy to 
put away a Marie wedded to him in Thursday 
Island. 

My boys will build a hut here,” said he at last, 
and we will hold a marriage feast. I will take you 
then. That will be better than the English way.” 

No,” declared Marie positively, that would be 
no more than — this. You could cast me off and go 
to England, and I should be left here alone on this 
hateful island.” 

My mother and my sisters would be with you,” 
said Willatopy haughtily. 

No. I must marry William, Lord Topsham, in 
Thursday Island, or — we must part, Willie. I was 
weak to-day, but I shall not come any more if you 
will not marry me.” 


MARIE LAMBERT 


22S 


Willatopy gritted his teeth, and Marie was nearer 
to receiving a hearty whipping than she had been 
since her nursery days. Nothing protected her ex- 
cept the vague stirrings of Willie's English blood. 
He would chastise his white slave, John, with unc- 
tion, but his hand unaccountably shrank from 
striking this white woman who irritated him so 
grievously. 

He began to speak in a halting fashion, and 
revealed to the anxiously listening woman the 
strange new thoughts which were struggling for 
expression in his awakening mind. 

John says that I must go to England. He says 
that if I send him away, others will come later. He 
says that an English Lord cannot live on an Island 
in the Straits; it is against the law, the English 
Law, and the Government will come for me. If I 
try to stay here they will put me in prison. He says 
that the English Lords are sent for by the King to 
go to London and help him to rule, and they can't 
refuse, unless they want to go to prison as rebels. 
That would be to disobey the King. I love the King, 
and would not disobey him. If he sends for me, 
then I must go. ... I love you, Marie, but love has 
nothing to do with making you my wife. I don't 
want a wife. When the King sends for me he will 
send for William, Lord Topsham, not for my wife. 
You and Madame Gilbert are the only white women 
I have known, close. I want to see other white 
women, lots of them, before I marry a wife. John 
says that they will all be my slaves in England, and 
that I can take my pick among them. I should like 
that. Of course I could not pick great ladies like 


m MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Madame Gilbert to be my slaves, at my pleasure, but 
there will be many others. Like you, Marie.” 

Marie raged, but that unlucky language difficulty 
hampered her freedom of speech. 

“ Madame Gilbert is not so very great,” she got 
out at length. She is my mistress, because she is 
rich, and because she saved me when I was in 
trouble in France. She is just an ordinary widow, 
not a real lady like I should be if you married me, 
Willie.” 

“What is that?” cried Willatopy, starting up. 
“ Madame Gilbert a widow? She told me she had a 
big handsome husband who loved her very much. 
She told me so when I said that I would like to 
marry her. I was a boy then, and had not become 
Lord Topsham.” 

“ Madame Gilbert is not truthful — ^like me. She 
says any old thing which suits her at the moment. 
Sometimes she tells men that she has a husband, 
sometimes that she is a widow. She is really a 
widow, I swear it to you. Her husband was killed 
in the war.” 

“How do you know?” asked Willatopy sus- 
piciously. “ I would believe Madame before you. 
She is a Queen, not a common thing like you. She 
cannot be a widow.” 

“ She is,” stated Marie positively, and left the 
assertion to sink into Willatopy’s mind. She was 
horribly jealous of the boy’s honest devotion to 
Madame Gilbert, and knew that widows were held 
in scant respect in the Torres Straits. Willie ranked 
his mother, once the wife of a white god, as 
altogether different from the ordinary run of brown 
jyidows, but she had been, so far, the one exception 


MARIE LAMBERT 




permitted by his social code. The simple savage 
mind does not like exceptions. 

No,’’ said he at last. I am sure that Madame 
has a big, handsome husband as she declared to me.” 

“ No,” shouted Marie. 

Marie,” growled Willatopy, ‘‘I don’t want to 
smack you, but if you say anything against Ma- 
dame, I shall, hard.” 

“ You love Madame better than you do me,” 
grumbled Marie. 

Willie had never analysed the various mental and 
physical emotions which are vaguely called love, 
and reflected upon this charge. 

expect that I do,” said he, arriving at a 
judgment. 

Marie sprang to her feet. 

^^Que tu es hete/’ she roared, ^^hete comme un 
sauvage. You are the — the — limit. I go.” She 
dashed away through the woods in a fury. Willa- 
topy grinned as he watched her disappear. His 
first rapture in the conquest of Marie Lambert was 
quickly wearing thin, and though he did not wish 
to part with his white mistress, a little of her society 
went a long way. 

I wonder,” he murmured, if the she-devil 
speaks truth, and that Madame is a widow. I will 
ask her.” 

Madame was lying in a rest chair at the entrance 
to her tent when Marie arrived. She calmly sur- 
veyed the girl who came to a halt before her and 
awaited orders. She allowed Marie a reasonable 
amount of time off every afternoon, but on this 
occasion the maid had outstayed her leave. 


226 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Where have you been? ” asked Madame. 

I met the Misses Toppys,” explained Marie, 
and they detained me. I thought that you would 
wish me to show the young ladies every respect. I 
did not like to leave them before they desired to 
return.” 

‘‘Quite so,” said Madame drily. “I hope that 
you also show Lord Topsham every — respect.” 

Marie started; never before had Madame used 
Willatopy’s title when speaking of him to her. 

“ Certainly, Madame. Whenever I meet his lord- 
ship, which is but seldom.” 

“In the future, it will be even less seldom,” 
serenely observed Madame Gilbert. “ The motor 
boat is waiting for the water to deepen upon the 
bar. When she leaves for the yacht you will take 
passage in her. And after that, my dear, it will be 
la belle France, With what pleasure you will 
revisit France after so long an exile ! ” 

Marie howled, and grovelled at Madame’s feet. 
“ Not France,” screamed she. “ Any punishment 
except France.” 

“ Marie,” said Madame, unmoved. “ You should 
have learned in these years of our association that 
I am not wholly a fool. My arm is long, and my 
eyes can penetrate the thickets^ — of Tops Island, for 
example. Yesterday I learned of the clearing in 
the woods where you have been meeting Lord Tops- 
ham. To-day I had you watched — when going and 
returning. Before, I suspected. Last time in 
France it was a German officer in hiding. Now it 
is the brown heir to an English peerage. Your 
tastes are catholic. They must be restrained, my 
dear, or they will get you into trouble. When early 


MARIE LAMBERT 




in the war I found you in Amiens with that German 
officer I had him haled forth and shot, but I con- 
cealed the identity of his associate. I believed your 
tearful story of innocence. You thought him a loyal 
Alsatian, didn’t you? His accent, I remember, 
called for some little explanation. You have been 
a useful maid. I have given you every chance. I 
warned you, when first Lord Topsham — then the 
boy, Willatopy, our Pilot — came to us, what would 
happen if you played tricks with him. It is going 
to happen now. I shall accompany you to France 
and inform the civil authorities of the circum- 
stances under which you were found by me four 
years ago at Amiens close to the fighting lines. The 
French are very hard upon those of their women 
who give shelter and comfort to enemy officers in 
hiding. The French are a susceptible race, yet 
much prettier women than you have been shot or 
hanged for smaller crimes than you committed. 
You will not find the Humming Top very comfort- 
able. She rolls damnably at anchor. After two or 
three weeks of her you will become quite a hardened 
sailor. Then you will have leisure to refiect upon 
your sins and upon their punishment.” 

Marie sobbed out confessions and appeals at Ma- 
dame’s chair, but the heart of her mistress was 
harder than its oaken frame. Madame listened 
politely to the story of Marie’s intrigue with Willa- 
topy, and incredulously to her voluble promises of 
amendment. 

“ In any case,” ended Marie, I had done with 
him. He refuses to marry me.” 

thought that was the game,” observed Ma- 
dame. It is ended, anyhow. And even if I had 


228 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


not tumbled to your carryings on, you would have 
failed. You could not have been legally married 
here, and Captain Ching has my orders to blockade 
the bay. The yawl, with the happy bride and bride- 
groom, would have been stopped on the way to the 
wedding. I have not come to the ends of the earth 
to be foiled by a Marie Lambert. And now, if you 
will put up your things, the boat will convey you 
to the Humming Top, For the rest of my stay here 
I shall dispense with the services of my maid.” 

At the last Marie showed the courage of her race. 
She rose, packed up her clothes, and went forth in 
the motor boat without another word. France was 
a long way off, and much might happen before she 
was carried thither to her doom. But the yacht was 
a very present horror, and Marie needed all her 
courage to face confinement within its heaving 
frames. Still she w^ent quietly without another 
word of wasted appeal. At the boat’s side she 
turned and bowed deferentially to her mistress. 

“Au revoir, Marie,” said Madame. 

Au ’voir, Madame,” said the maid. 

Madame Gilbert watched the boat buzz away, and 
nodded approvingly. 

She has pluck,” she murmured. That is much. 
We will reconsider the second part of the pro- 
gramme. But for the present it shall hang like a 
sharp sword over Marie’s head.” 

Marie watched Madame standing there on the 
shore, and smiled grimly. 

At least,” thought she, I have told Willie that 
his goddess is a widow. That will take a bit of the 
gilt and wings off her.” From which it would ap- 
pear that Marie, though subdued and humbled, was 
not in the least repentant. 


CHAPTER XV 


TURTLE 


‘Y^ILI'ATOPY did not immediately discover that 
Marie had been forcibly embarked and defi- 
nitely severed from his embraces. He did not at- 
tend the place of tryst next day, for he was other- 
wise engaged. One of his brown boys had caught 
a sucker,” which he pronounced to be in excellent 
condition for the chase; a sucker suggested turtle; 
and the claims,, first of sport and secondly of turtle, 
cooked native fashion in its own juices, banished 
all thoughts of Marie from his mind. Much more 
civilised men than the Twenty-Eighth Baron of 
Topsham have subordinated Love to Sport and the 
Table. 

Madame was an early riser in the Island. At 
seven o^clock the following morning she was up, and 
was about to seek refreshment in a swim, when her 
steward approached. 

^‘Lord Topsham’s compliments,” said the man, 
and could Madame spare his lordship a moment 
before leaving for her bathe? ” 

Madame frowned slightly. She naturally ex- 
pected that Willie had descended in wrath to de- 
mand the return of his ravished mistress, and she 
did not want to face a struggle, and possibly a 
quarrel, before breakfast. 

229 


^30 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

His lordship awaits your pleasure,” added the 
steward, outside the escort tent.” 

There was nothing to be done except to meet 
Willatopy at once. He might perhaps restrain his 
emotional expression in the public arena of the stir- 
ring men’s camp. 

Willatopy hailed Madame joyously. He had gone 
back at a bound to the gay light-hearted boy who 
had killed sharks with trench daggers and caught 
fish on the Barrier in his jaws. 

“ Are you Willie or Lord Topsham? ” asked Ma- 
dame. I love Willie, but I don’t think that I am 
going to approve of Lord Topsham.” 

With you, dear Madame,” cried the boy, I 
am always Willie. Let us forget that I am a great 
English Lord. One of my boys has caught a beauti- 
ful sucker. He has tied a string to its tail and 
tethered it to a stone in the water down yonder. 
As soon as you have bathed and had breakfast, Ma- 
dame, let us be off after turtle in the motor boat. 
If we are quick we can eat turtle in the evening, 
real turtle.” He smacked his lips. 

What, please, is a sucker? ” enquired Madame. 
She had already been out with Willie on a not very 
successful attempt to spear turtle in the open sea, 
but had never assisted at a chase a la sucker. 

“ A sucker,” explained Willie, is just a sucker. 
It sticks to the turtle.” 

Madame turned to the group of officers and men 
who stood at a respectful distance at the opening 
of their tent. 

Explain please,” cried she. What is a 
sucker? ” Captain Ching detached himself and ap- 
proached. 


TURTLE 


231 


A sucker/’ he explained lucidly, is a remora.” 

Thank you,” said Madame sweetly. That is 
excellent as far as it goes. But what, pray, is a 
remora? ” 

Ching struggled helplessly against such dense 
feminine ignorance. If, in the absence of the 
quadruped, one asked a farmer What is a cow? ” 
he might become as costive in speech as poor Ching. 

The voluble Ewing, who was within earshot, of- 
fered his services. 

The remora, Madame, is the fabulous creature 
which used to cling to the ships of our forbears, 
and drag them backwards with all sails set. At 
the high school of Paisley they used to teach me 
that the remora, fastening its sucker upon the galley 
of Marcus Antoninus, prevented him from bringing 
succour to his Queen Cleopatra.” The pun when 
first uttered was accidental, but Ewing, unhappily 
perceiving that he had achieved a play on words, 
repeated the offence deliberately, which was beyond 
pardon. 

‘^Your will obsairve, Madame,” remarked he, 
^‘that I am a man of wut.” 

“ Alexander,” said Madame, if I have any more 
of your wut I shall send for my gun. From your 
description it would appear that the remora is 
rather a formidable pet.” 

That is so. The galley of Marcus Antoninus was 
pulled by the remora against the efforts of a hun- 
dred rowers.” 

“ Whew ! ” whistled Madame. One might as 
well go a-fishing with a Kraken.” 

But, Madame,” broke in Ching. A remora is 


232 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


not often more than two feet long. It is a power- 
ful beast for its size.’’ ^ 

So it would appear. My brain whirls. A fish 
two feet long which can pull a galley against a 
hundred rowers must be of considerable horse- 
power. And yet Willie’s boy has tethered it to a 
stone. It is true that he has not revealed the size 
of the stone — ^it must be as big as yonder moun- 
tain.” 

The beast is fabulous,” observed Ewing. 

No,” said Ching, Echeneis Remora is a well- 
known fish.” 

“ Willie,” appealed Madame in despair. “ Lead 
me to your captive. These experts will drive me 
frantic.” 

Willatopy led her about a hundred yards, and 
showed to her a fish, less than two feet long, 
wriggling about in a shallow pool. A string had 
been fastened near its forked tail, and the stone, 
which held it captive, weighed some five pounds. 
Willie pointed to the curious, palpitating organ, 
some five inches long, upon the shoulders of the 
fish by means of which it could adhere by suction 
to a turtle or to a boat. Hence the name “ sucker.” 

That is a remora,” observed Ching. 

“ Is it? ” said Ewing sourly. “ That wee bit 
thing a remora? Then all I can say is that our 
ancestors and our historians are damned liars.” 

‘‘Your criticism is not new, Sandy,” observed 
Madame. “ In the unkind light of positive evidence, 
tradition and history have a way of crumpling up. 
How do you use the beast, Willie? ” 

Willatopy explained that the sucker adhered to 
the plastron of a turtle, which could then be played 


TURTLE 


233 


by means of a long thin line fastened to the snckert 
tail. For greater security a hole was bored through 
the sucker’s back, a bit of string run through, and 
attached to the main line. 

“ Hum ! ” remarked Madame. Painful for the 
sucker, isn’t it? ” 

With the customary assurance of the sportsman, 
Willie claimed that the sucker rather enjoyed than 
otherwise the use to which its services were put. 
By a similar contention a worm loves to be impaled 
upon a hook. 

If we are quick,” said Willie, there will be 
time to cook a turtle for supper. Have you ever 
tasted turtle, Madame, real turtle? ” 

So I have been assured,” replied Madame 
cautiously. 

I don’t expect, Madame,” put in Ghing, that 
you have ever eaten turtle cooked in its own shell, 
native fashion.” 

Never. Is it good? ” 

Good ! Good ! ” Ching sighed deeply. “ If they 
eat food in Heaven that is the sort of food that they 
eat.” 

Will you come with us. Captain, and afterwards 
join me at supper? ” 

I will, Madame. I would not be absent for a 
thousand pounds.” 

“ And why should I be left out? ” wailed Ewing. 

I cannot offer a thousand pounds for my supper. 
I am a poor man. But if half-a*croon . . .” 

You shall come for nothing, Sandy,” said Ma- 
dame graciously. 

The motor boat was ready shortly after break- 
fast. With her eight-cylinder forty-horse-power 


234 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


engine she conld drive through the surf on the bar 
between half-flood and half-ebb, and the big curved 
storm curtain in her bows kept her passengers 
moderately dry, except at the extreme ends of her 
tidal range. Willie took on board some sixty yards 
of thin cotton line wound upon a wooden check 
winch, which, long since, he had purchased in 
Thursday Island. The wealth of Willatopy en- 
abled him to improve upon native fishing methods. 
He fitted the winch upon a piece of stick, and 
lashed this stick to a thwart of the boat. He ex- 
plained that by keeping the motor boat broadside on 
to a sucker-attached turtle — a manoeuvre which her 
dominating speed made easy — he could play the 
beast over the gunwale from his winch. To his 
hunting equipment he added four spears — similar 
to those which had become the terror of intrusive 
lawyers — and to the shafts of these spears were 
fastened coils of long stout cord. Turtle hunting 
a la sucker looked a complicated business, though, 
according to Willie, the principle was easy of com- 
prehension. One despatched the sucker in quest of 
a turtle, just as our ancestors flew falcons after 
heron, played the turtle by way of the sucker’s tail 
and soreback for so long as might be necessary to 
tire the animal, then at favourable opportunities the 
spears were thrown, and finally the quarry was 
brought to boat by means of the cords attached to 
the shafts of the spears. All this took time, for a 
turtle in these waters ran up to some four feet in 
length and two hundred and fifty pounds in weight. 

There is a powerful lot of eating in a turtle,” 
remarked Ewing when these statistical details had 
been made clear. 


TURTLE 


235 


Wonderful eating, too,’’ murmured Ching, and 
fell into deep contemplation of the divinely copious 
ambrosia which would reward success in their 
chase. 

Does the sucker get any reward for its ser- 
vices? ” enquired Madame. 

If it is not too far gone,” explained Willie, “ my 
brown boys eat it.” 

The lords of creation are ungrateful pigs,” said 
Madame. 

Willatopy took one of his boys to do the spearing 
part of the programme, a junior engineer relieved 
Ewing of all care for the engine, Ching steered, Ma- 
dame sat in the bows under the storm curtain, and 
the expedition set forth. It was bound for the 
sheltered coves on the west coast of Tops Island, 
where turtle were to be found disporting them- 
selves in five or six fathoms of water. The sucker, 
a most accommodating beast, was put over the side 
of the boat, and instantly grappled the wooden 
planking to its adhesive shoulders. It is this pas- 
sion for free travel which has made the remora the 
slave of turtle-hunting man. He is a hoe-boe among 
fish; too lazy to swim, he makes others swim for 
him. Then man steps in and utilises his laziness. 

In the sheltered waters to leeward of the Island 
turtle could be seen swimming far down ; now and 
then one would rise, take a gulp of air, fiop over and 
descend. They were very shy, and when the shadow 
of the motor boat fell upon them would flee in- 
stantly. Upon Madame’s previous visit Willatopy 
never got within spear throw of the beasts, but 
now he was better equipped for the discomfiture of 
turtle. He bade Ching anchor, but haul short on 


23 a MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


the cable, so that the launch might get away quickly 
upon emergency. The motor was declutched and 
kept running slowly so that power would instantly 
be at call. Then he watched intently the depths 
of the clear sea. For some time no turtle ap- 
proached the hovering boat, but, after about half- 
an-hour, the great carapace and flappers of a flne 
specimen could be made out. Willie waited pa- 
tiently until the turtle began to rise for breath, and 
then leaning well over he grabbed the remora, and 
skinned its sucker off the bottom of the launch. The 
direct retaining power of a sucker is enormous, but 
one may lever up an edge and peel it off without 
great difficulty. He rubbed the organ of suction vig- 
orously with his hand — to wake it up ” said he — 
and then, as the turtle neared the surface some 
forty yards away, threw the remora far out towards 
it over the side of the boat. The turtle gulped and 
sank, and with it, adhering tightly to its plastron, 
went the remora. Denied free, joyous transport 
under a motor launch, it would put up with turtle. 
Its vigorously chafed sucker itched for adherence to 
something. The check on the winch whirred as the 
thin line ran out. 

The turtle could not feel the suck of the remora 
which clung tightly to its shell, and, for a while 
was unconscious of the strain upon Willatopy’s line. 
A pound or so of pull upon a beast weighing two 
hundred-weight is not very noticeable. It wandered 
to and fro upon its lawful occasions, and all the 
while Willatopy kept the line tight by winding it 
in, or letting it run out against the mechanical 
check. He was subjecting the big turtle to less 


TURTLE 


237 


pull than one puts upon a twenty-pound salmon, 
and the situation called for sublime patience. 

Time passed, the sun rose higher and higher in 
the sky, the launch rolled lazily in the back wash 
of the Pacific swell, but Willatopy went on oblivious 
playing his turtle. He could not increase the 
strain lest the line be torn out of the remora^s 
back. I cannot believe, in spite of Willie^s as- 
surances to Madame, that the remora itself really 
enjoyed the sport. A. small fish with a string tied 
round its tail — and also rove through a hole in its 
back — and perpetually hauled upon by a heavy 
check winch, could not have been wholly com- 
fortable. 

The turtle wandered farther and farther away. 
Willie ordered the anchor to be hauled up, the pro- 
peller moved slowly, and the boat to be steered in 
a wide circle of which the turtle and the adhering 
remora formed the centre. For an hour or more 
this manoeuvre was continued, until the turtle re- 
vealed plain signs of annoyance. Hitherto it had 
risen at intervals, showed maybe two inches of 
snout, while it took a mouthful of air, and then 
passed to the depths to feed. Now its head would 
come right out as it shook it savagely, and the 
upper flappers would beat the water in irritation. 
Willatopy did not hurry the chase. He wanted the 
turtle’s attention to be so far diverted from the boat 
and concentrated upon its own troubles that he 
could approach within a spear’s throw. But he 
steadily shortened his line, and directed Ching to 
make circles, or rather spirals, of ever-narrowing 
radius. Upon these sea expeditions Madame did not 
carry a watch, and was no accurate judge of time 


238 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


without one. They had reached the fishing ground 
at about nine o^clock, and it was about noon when 
the second stage in the hunt began. Thus Willa- 
topy had played his turtle for some two hours and 
a half. Once he could begin to get in work with 
his spears, the business would not take long in com- 
pletion, though the natives, in their tiny canoes, 
hauled about by a speared turtle, will occupy some 
six hours in the killing. A powerful motor boat as 
a base of operation is very different from a bark 
canoe two feet wide, and with little more than an 
inch of free board. 

The motor boat, steered by the deeply interested 
Ching, and guided by an occasional nod and word 
from Willatopy, closed in upon ever-narrowing 
spirals. The turtle, a huge beast, would now stay 
up a few seconds after each rise, shaking its big 
puzzled head, and churning the water into angry 
foam with aimless flappers. Willie signalled to his 
boy, who picked up a spear, and got upon his feet. 
He was a skilful boy, and it was a pretty bit of 
javelin work that he put in. The turtle was twenty 
yards distant at its last rise, yet the boy got it 
full under the flapper with his first cast. 

Now,” roared Willie, as the turtle dashed down 
and away, leaving a trail of blood on the water, 
and the line fastened to the spear shaft spun out. 
Round came the motor boat and followed fast, yet 
not so fast that the cord was overrun. Willie 
wanted the turtle to pull against the barb of the 
spear, as it had pulled against the check of his 
winch. The end now approached. The brown boy, 
another spear in his hand, waited for a second 
chance, and got it. His spear, flung with the most 


TURTLE 


239 


dazzling force and accuracy, caught the unhappy 
turtle under a lower flapper as it rolled over to 
dive, and it was now attached, fore and aft, by two 
cords to the boat. Still Willatopy did not hurry; 
a turtle^s flesh is soft, and the barbs might be torn 
out, and the prey lost if haste followed too close 
upon the heels of desire. He went on playing the 
beast sideways, hauling in a little upon his cord, as 
it weakened from its wounds, until finally he could 
get within spear’s thrust and reach a clean finish. 

“Now,” said he again, as the turtle, pulled in 
within six feet of the boat, wallowed on the sur- 
face, and his boy, leaning down, drove a third and 
last spear right home between shoulders and cara- 
pace. “ It is finished,” said Willie with satisfaction. 
“We will now go back at speed and start upon the 
cookery.” 

“ I am rather sorry for the brave turtle,” ob- 
served Madame. 

“ Not me,” said Alexander, who throughout had 
done nothing, and done it with his customary effi- 
ciency. “ I have yet to taste a supper which Ching 
values at a thousand pounds of our grievously de- 
preciated currency. It must be a supper worth com- 
ing twelve thousand miles to eat.” 

“ It is worth swimming twelve thousand miles to 
eat, if you couldn’t get to it any other way,” said 
Ching, for once really eloquent. 

The turtle had been killed and hauled aboard at 
half -past twelve. Half an hour later the motor boat, 
driven at twenty knots, butted its humped shoulders 
through the surf, and sped down the bay to Ma- 
dame’s camping ground. A crowd of Willie’s brown 
boys awaited the arrival of the hunters. How they 


240 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


knew that a turtle had been caught I cannot ex- 
plain. They did know, and wading into the water, 
they dragged it forth with enthusiasm. 

Their knowledge, acquired so mysteriously, had 
already impelled them to light the fires for the cook- 
ing, and the stones had been getting hot long be- 
fore the motor boat had passed the bar on her rush 
for home. 

Now watch, Madame,” said Ching. I have 
seen native turtle cooking in Queensland, and it 
is worth seeing. It may be Stone Age cookery, but 
w^e can’t beat it with all^our modern appliances. 
If the Lord Mayor knew what turtle really tasted 
like when properly cooked, he would let the Mansion 
House for what it would fetch, and live for ever in 
the South Seas.” 

“We want eight hours,” pronounced Willie. 
“ No more, and not a minute less. So jump lively. 
Madame by nine o’clock will be hungry, but she will 
be glad to have waited.” 

“ I have a healthy appetite at all times,” quoth 
Madame, “ and am always eager for my meals. But 
if turtle is like what you suggest, I will wait for it 
till midnight.” 

“ Eight hours,” again said Willie. “ No more, 
but not a minute less.” 

While they talked, the boys had cut off the head 
and the fore fiappers of the turtle, and grubbed out 
its inside with knives. They hollowed out the beast 
as if it had been a pumpkin. Those inward parts 
which had been taken out were cleaned carefully, 
and replaced under the stern inspecting eye of 
Willatopy. His reputation was at stake, and he 
had determined that Madame should partake of a 


TURTLE 


241 


snpper worthy of the goddess that he still reckoned 
her to be. Then a hole was dug in the sand, and 
the turtle levered up till the tail and lower flappers 
had been buried deeply. The headless beast stood 
up rigidly, and the hole between carapace and 
plastron, where its neck had been, yawned capa- 
ciously. The boys went to the smaller of the two 
fires, and clearing away the red-hot ashes revealed 
a dozen flat stones, about the size of small saucers. 
These stones glowed red as the ashes amid which 
they had been heated. They were picked one up by 
one between sticks, and dropped down through the 
cavity of the neck into the interior of the waiting 
turtle. As they fell, they hissed savagely, and a 
thick oily steam poured forth. 

It smells good,” murmured Madame. 

Wait,” said Willie. He inserted a stout, clean 
strip of bamboo in the turtle’s stomach, and stirred 
the stones thoroughly, so that they might make 
burning contact with all the interior juices. 

In the meanwhile the brown boys had gone to the 
second and much larger fire, which was burning 
furiously. They cast on dry sticks and churned its 
heart so that the flames roared to Heaven. When 
its heat had been judged to be sufficient, they raked 
away the blazing wood from its bed, and Madame 
saw that the fire had been built upon stones laid 
together to make an oval saucer of about the same 
size and shape as the turtle’s carapace. These 
stones under the fire had also become red hot. 
Under Willatopy’s stern exacting eye the sand 
about the turtle was scraped away, and the beast, 
with the hot stones in its belly, eased down care- 
fully so that not a drop of the precious juice was 


242 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


spilled. Then four boys lifted it, carapace down- 
wards, and deposited the body on the hot bed which 
had been prepared in readiness as its last resting- 
place. Instantly, so that none of the essential heat 
might be dissipated, all the boys fell to work piling 
green leaves upon the turtle, and then sand upon 
the leaves until a mound, four feet high, rose above 
the hot sto'ue bed upon which the promised supper 
lay stewing slowly in its own rich juices. Above 
and below the carapace glowed the hot stones, and 
within white flesh and glutin fizzled together in 
silent preparation. It was, as the Skipper said. 
Stone Age cookery, yet all the modern appliances 
of civilisation have not come near to equalling its 
performances. 

“ I feel hungry already,” wailed Madame, turn- 
ing sorrowfully away from the sacred mound. 

“ Eight hours,” said Willie sternly. “No more, 
but not a minute less. The Turtle Will Then Be 
Cooked.” 

Madame issued invitations to all the officers and 
men of her escort, and as night drew on, tripods 
were put up round the mound, under which the 
supper was cooking, and ships’ lanterns hung upon 
them. Wood for a fire was also prepared and piled 
up hard by, for the air, after sunset, rapidly cooled 
as the heat radiated from the shores of the Island. 
Mrs. Toppys and her daughters, all of whom loved 
turtle cooked native fashion, were eager to take 
part in the feast; and since the turtle was so very 
large, Madame offered a reversion in the hot corpse 
to Willie’s brown boys who had so cunningly pro- 
vided the apparatus of cookery. 

They shall eat^” said Willie, “ but not until we 


TURTLE 


243 


have finished.’’ Willatopy, Lord of Tops Island, 
did not pretend to any truck with democracy. 

I do not often describe meals in my books. They 
are usually functions of physical necessity rather 
than of intellectual interest. But I cannot re- 
frain from indicating that turtle, cooked native 
fashion with hot stones, is a divine repast. A 
supper which, merely in anticipation, moved the 
silent Ching to eloquent enthusiasm, cannot be dis- 
missed in a bald sentence. Yet how can one con- 
vey in words the supreme satisfaction with which 
our friends in Tops Island began and ended that 
memorable supper? European turtle soup, even 
that of the Mansion House banquets, is a pale, taste- 
less potage when placed in comparison alongside 
a carapace filled to the brim with the concentrated 
essence of turtle perfectly cooked in its own sacred 
juices. 

At half-past nine that evening Willatopy, in tones 
of becoming gravity, announced that supper might 
be served. The company gathered about the mound 
in silence. The occasion was too solemn a one, and 
feelings were too deep, for smiles or speech. The 
ship’s lanterns had been lighted, and rugs spread 
conveniently near to the adjacent fire. Willie raised 
his hand, and two brown boys stepping forward, 
cleared the sand and leaves from the turtle’s shell. 
Then, with fingers carefully wrapped in wet leaves, 
they -slowly prised off and lifted the plastron. Upon 
its stone bed lay the bountiful carapace, and with- 
in glowed in the light of lanterns a thick deep 
brown steaming turtle stew. Gallons of it ! It is a 
poor wretched word, stew, but I am dredged empty 
of adequate terms in which to describe that gor- 


2U MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

geous compost. The smell of it rose up like a bene- 
diction, and smote all present in the most sensitive 
nerve centres of their beings. They gasped and 
remained speechless. Madame alone retained some- 
thing of her self-possession. She beckoned to her 
steward, and whispered the one word “ SPOONS ! ’’ 

The man handed them round, and, first, Ma- 
dame, and then the others, prepared to dip. 

But Alexander Ewing, towering, forbidding in 
his pale emotion, raised a warning hand. 

“ Let us, my friends,’’ said he solemnly, first 
ask a blessing.” 

“ Dinna be o’er lang, Sandy man,” whispered 
Madame. She had been in act to dip her spoon, 
and the scent of concentrated turtle had come near 
to driving forth from her all the polite restraints of 
civilised feeding. Cut the grace short if you love 
me.” 

Alexander asked a blessing, fervent in its agi- 
tated brevity. He did not keep them waiting long. 
He was himself too eager to begin. 

Then they dipped their spoons, slowly sucked 
down the quintessence of turtle — and worshipped. 
Their thanks before meat may have been perfunc- 
tory ; afterwards it was heartfelt. They all guzzled, 
every man and woman of them. Willatopy sought 
not to enquire why his Marie was not present in 
attendance upon her mistress. He was too busy 
with his spoon. Mrs. Toppys with Joy and Cry, 
though turtle was no new experience for them, fell 
to as eagerly as did the Europeans. In some re- 
spects it may be considered by the judicious to have 
been a horrid spectacle. But give me the most sour- 
faced and dyspeptic of social critics, let me place 


TUETLE 


245 


Mm before a carapace well filled with real turtle, 
cooked native fashion for eight hours, and his high- 
browed criticism will go to blazes. He will guzzle 
with the rest. 

They did not stop until exhaustion, following 
upon repletion, drove them to the rugs about the 
fire. There they lay and smoked Madame’s ciga- 
rettes. They did not digest. One does not digest 
real turtle, cooked native fashion in its own juices. 
One absorbs it whole. 

Then the brown boys came and fell upon the 
turtle. They lapped it up with balls of dried grass ; 
they ate noisily and disgustingly; but those who 
had fed before them looked on with approving sym- 
pathy. No restraints, no civilised conventions, can 
be expected of those, white or brown, who sup late 
and hungry upon real turtle. Especially of those 
who have cooked it. 

When all was finished, Madame suddenly re- 
membered the humble hard-working sucker, to 
whose exertions they owed the feast which had been 
spread. She beckoned Willie to her side and 
whispered : 

“ What became of the dear sucker? ’’ 

Oh ! ” replied he indifferently. It was still 
attached to the turtle when we drew it in. It died 
in the boat, so I threw it away. It was no more 
good.” 

For a full minute Madame said nothing. Then : 

Mankind,” observed she sententiously to the stars 
which twinkled yet heeded not, ‘^Mankind was 
never grateful to its true benefactors. And man- 
kind never changes. But next time, Willie, please 
put the sucker back in the water before it is dead. 
It might come in useful another time.” 


OHAPTEE XVI 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 

^HAT was the last of Madame Gilbert’s happy 
days in Tops Island. Before twenty-four hours 
had gone by, the storm burst which whirled Willa- 
topy as we have known him out of my story. In 
his place remained Lord Topsham. In the course 
of the last ten chapters I have tried to realise Willa- 
topy and to paint his portrait for you. It has been 
a labour of love, for he was a gallant lad. But 
for the Lord Topsham, into whom by woeful mis- 
chance of birth he developed, I have neither re- 
spect nor affection. He seems to me to have dis- 
played the worst qualities of the two races whose 
blood formed an unstable mixture in his veins. It 
is true that the boy never had a chance. The 
lawyer, John Clifford, and the girl Marie were the 
worse conceivable guides for his halting steps on 
the threshold of a new life. And just when Ma- 
dame Gilbert’s influence was most vitally needed 
by him it failed. She who had been raised to the 
throne of a goddess came tumbling down and lay 
prostrate — a, mere human widow. Willatopy 
spurned both his gods — his dead father the wise 
madman of Tops Island, and the living Madame. 
He rejected the precepts of the father, and he bitter- 
ly resented the restraints which Madame Gilbert 
sought to impose upon him. His misguided, master- 
246 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 


247 


ful spirit then led him with terrible swiftness down 
the steep slope which ended in irretrievable disaster. 
I love the boy Willatopy, and I would that it had 
been my fate to tell this story differently. 

When Willie found the place of assignation 
empty, on the afternoon which followed the turtle 
feast, he descended in great leaps to Madame^s 
camp, and made enquiries of her escort. From a 
talkative sailor he learned that Marie had been em- 
barked in the motor boat two days before, and had 
not returned to the camp. Willie scented a discov- 
ery of his amour, and, as a deeply resentful Peer of 
England, sought an explanation from Madame Gil- 
bert. 

“ What have you done with Marie, Madame Gil- 
bert? ” demanded he. 

“ What has my maid Marie to do with Lord Top- 
sham?’’ asked Madame. She saw the fury burn- 
ing in the bright blue eyes, and faced him with a 
hauteur as fierce as his own. 

I have made her my white slave,” growled he. 

“ That is very good of you,” said Madame blandly. 

But Marie Lambert happens to be my maid and 
otherwise engaged. By my orders she has been 
returned to the yacht, where she will remain. 
Please bear in mind, Willie, that your heirship to 
a Peerage gives you no rights whatever over my 
servants.” 

“John says . . .” began Willie, but Madame 

waved him into silence with a royal gesture. 

“ If you paid more attention to your father’s 
memory and to my words, and less to that miserable 
wretch, John Clifford, you would understand better 
your position. An English Lord has no rights 


248 MADAME GILBERTS’ CANNIBAL 


which are not common to every English gentleman. 
John Clifford is deceiving you for his own ends, that 
he may take you to England and rob you. You 
think yourself rich, my poor boy. Wait till Clifford 
has had his will of you. There will not be a shilling 
left in your purse, and not an ounce of flesh upon 
your bones, when Clifford has done with the strip- 
ping of you.” 

John came all the way from England to tell 
me that I was the heir of my uncle. You also came 
all the way from England, but you told me noth- 
ing. You must have known, for you came here in 
a Toppys yacht, the property of my cousin. Yet 
you told me nothing. John Clifford is a little mean 
white beast, but he has been more of a friend to 
me than you, Madame. Although you knew what I 
had become you told me nothing.” 

Yes,” said Madame calmly. I knew. And 
yet I told you nothing.” 

It was you who wished to rob me, you and Sir 
John Toppys. If John Clifford had not come I 
should still be Willatopy.” 

‘^It is my great regret that you have not re- 
mained the Willatopy whom I met and loved in the 
Torres Straits. You were happy then, you are un- 
happy now. Nothing except misery for you can 
come of this most lamentable suecession of yours.” 

J ohn has often told me that you wished to rob 
me, you and Sir John Toppys. But I did not be- 
lieve. I beat John for the words that he spoke 
against you. But now I begin to believe. You and 
your Humming Top would never have taken me to 
England if John had not come to search me out.” 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 


249 


You would not have wished to go to England 
if John Clifford had not come to spoil your life.” 

Willatopy would not have gone to England. 
Why should he? But now that I am the lawful 
Lord of Topsham I shall certainly go. My father 
was wrong. I see now that my place is not here. I 
see it more clearly because you have tried to keep 
me in ignorance. You who were my friend, my false 
friend, have now become openly my enemy. You 
tried to steal my place in England from me, and 
now you have torn away my white girl, Marie.” 

Willie,” said Madame gently. It is not very 
long since in the Humming Top I offered to raise 
the anchor and bear you homewards myself. Does 
this look as if I wished to steal your place from 
you? I offered to carry you home and protect you. 
It was you, Willie, who declined to go.” 

“ I would not leave Marie.” 

^^I suspected that Marie was the explanation. 
The publicity of a yacht does not offer much oppor- 
tunity for assignations. You have behaved very 
badly towards me, Willie. You had. no right to 
make appointments with my servant. Still less 
have you any right to resent my action in sending 
her back to the Humming Top. I am speaking to 
you exactly as I should to an English gentleman 
and a social equal. Lord Topsham has behaved 
badly, Willie. Lord Topsham, under the malign 
influence of that Clifford wretch, has got his head 
swelled. When you go to England you will have 
many miseries and many disappointments. You 
will discover that, in these modern days, English 
Lords count for nothing except for their worth as 
men. They have no rights and no powers beyond 


250 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


those of common men. But, Willie, because of their 
rank and place they are expected to behave always 
as honourable gentlemen. It is no act of a gentle- 
man to come ranting and raging at me because I 
stopped your intrigue with my servant Marie. An 
Englishman, even one without rank or station, 
would be ashamed to speak to me in reproof upon 
such a subject. He would have felt too much of 
shame for his conduct. You played me a low trick, 
Willie, and I am excessively angry with you.” 

Why should I feel shame before you? ” asked 
Willie haughtily. Never before had he used such a 
tone towards Madame Gilbert, and she looked 
searchingly at him. She had noticed and lamented 
the almost daily change observable in him, but 
though much of his old tender regard for her had 
been visibly slipping away, he had never yet used 
words of offence. 

‘^Why should I feel shame before you?” he 
asked again. 

Madame Gilbert shrugged her shoulders. It was 
a question difficult to answer. After all the boy was 
a Melanesian who had never been outside his own 
seas, and one could not expect him to comprehend 
the standards of social conduct in Europe. 

‘‘You were my friend, Willie, my dear friend. 
And Marie was my maid. Don’t you see that your 
action was not quite worthy of one who calls him- 
self Lord Topsham? You are now the head of a 
very ancient and honourable family.” 

“ Honourable ! ” cried Willie scornfully. “ You 
told me that you were the honourable wife of a big 
and handsome husband. Now I know that you 
are nothing but a widow.” 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 251 


Who told you that? asked Madame quietly. 

“ Is it true? 

“ Yes, it is true. My big and handsome husband 
is dead. But what difference does that make? I 
put up my big and handsome husband because at 
our first meeting in the yacht, which seems now so 
long ago, your admiration was so very outspoken. 
You wanted, if I remember rightly, to marry me 
yourself.’^ 

“ I did not then know that you were a widow. 
Men do not marry widows in the Torres Straits.” 

“ So that is the trouble. I am a widow, and 
therefore disreputable. Willie, dear, when I think 
how much you have to learn about the ways of 
white men and women, my heart fails because of 
you. You will have a very, very, rotten time in 
England. Clifford is your white slave, and Marie 
is, or was, your white mistress. You have made a 
very bad beginning, and a beginning most unfor- 
tunate for you. You think, no doubt, that all white 
men will be your slaves and all white women will 
be at your pleasure. That is what Clifford tells 
you. He stuffs you up with this dreadful rubbish 
and stifles your sense — ^you have plenty of good 
sense about things that you understand — ^he stifles 
your sense with filthy liquors brought over from 
Thursday Island. You are a fly in the spider’s web, 
Willie, and I, who have done my best to save you 
from him, am spumed as a mere widow. If yon 
were a little older, my dear, you would remember 
that a Widow sat on the throne of England for more 
years than you or I are likely to live.” 

“ Queens are different. My mother is a widow, 
but she also is different, Her husband ^as a white 


252 MADAME OttBERT’S CANNIBAL 


god. You, Madame, are not different. You tried 
to rob me of my rank and place, and you have torn 
away Marie whom I loved. I will never forgive you, 
Madame. You thought that I was a helpless brown 
boy who could be played with and deceived. If you 
had been a queen with a big handsome king for 
husband I would have obeyed your wishes. I would 
have stayed here in Tops Island and forgotten 
Marie whom I should not love if she were not white. 
But I am not going to be ruled by a widow, even 
by one so beautiful as you. I am not Willatopy 
any more; I am William, Lord Topsham.” 

do not think,” responded Madame coldly, 
^‘that I am greatly interested in William, Lord 
Topsham, or that I desire his further acquaintance. 
You have my permission to depart.” 

He stared, puzzled by the formula of dismissal. 
Then when Madame turned her broad back, his skin 
flushed into deep purple. He a great English Lord 
had been curtly sent away by a mere widow ! Some- 
thing must be wrong with the world which in ig- 
norant imagination he had constructed. William, 
Lord Topsham, went to consult John Clifford, who 
advised that Madame, with her paraphernalia of 
tents and escort, should be summarily expelled from 
the Toppys property on the Island. But Willie in 
becoming an English Lord had not shed his native 
courtesy. So long as Madame wished to remain on 
Tops Island, she was free to stay. But for his part 
he would visit her no more. 

Madame Gilbert summoned her friends into coun- 
cil, and described in detail the stormy interview 
with Willie. 

^^We were both very angry, very haughty, and 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 


95S 


very ridiculous,” said Madame. I think that the 
late supper upon excessive quantities of rich turtle 
had something to do with our loss of temper. The 
high mightinesses of his brown lordship ought to 
have made me laugh. But there will emerge, I 
fancy, certain solid advantages. It is clear that 
Master Willie a la tete montee has flung away the 
precepts of his late father, and means to claim his 
English peerage. He will very soon find that the 
Madame Gilbert whom he is pleased to scorn holds 
the key to that project. We will begin at once to 
make ostentatious preparations for departure. You 
might, if you will. Captain, hire sundry brown boys 
to scrape weed off the Humming Top’s teak fenders. 
Our preparations will instantly come to Willie’s 
ears, and he will rapidly pass from curiosity to 
worry. Prompted by John Clifford it will dawn 
upon his infant mind that the Humming Top holds 
not only Marie, but the command of his passage to 
England.” 

The boys will be delighted to scrape off the 
worst of our weed,” said Ching, and their labours 
will help us up to Singapore. But I don’t quite 
grasp the rest of your scheme, Madame.” 

‘‘ It is quite simple,” said she. ‘‘ In these days of 
overcrowded shipping how is Willie to get away 
beyond Thursday Island unless as our guest in the 
'Humming Top? He might hang about for months 
waiting for a ship to take him to Singapore, and 
"might spend months more before he could get any 
farther. Grant, if I mistake not, will not unloose 
the money bags, and John Clifford, whatever may 
be his resources, will not spend a penny more than 
he can help. It will be the interest of both to come 


254 , 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


hat in hand to me, and make peace. Then I shall 
command the situation and lay down my own 
terms.’’ 

Madame is right,” cried Ewing. She always 
is. It will cost Clifford a small fortune to get Willie 
home by passenger steamers even if he can secure 
berths, which is not likely. When he is up against 
staying here or in Thursday Island at indefinite 
delay and expense for a passage, he will send his 
brown master to Madame to eat humble pie. I 
don’t want to let either of them get out of my sight, 
and it will be a great pull for us if they come of 
their own accord.” 

“ Besides,” went on Madame serenely, I have 
the bait of Marie locked up in the Humming Tog, 
and Willie does not know that my hold over her is 
so terrifying that she will avoid him like the plague 
when he comes aboard. Let him find that out later 
for himself.” Madame then explained the nature of 
her infiuence over Marie Lambert. If she remains 
convinced that I shall certainly take her to France 
she may become reckless, but I shall hint judicious- 
ly that a rigid obedience to my orders may bring 
about a reprieve. I’ve got her tight, and Master 
Willie too. They may both be as savage as they 
please so long as they dance to my strings.” 

The weak point of your scheme, Madame, if I 
may say so,” observed Ching, is the presence of 
that damned Jonah Clifford in my yacht. He will 
bring along enough ill luck to sink a battleship. My 
oflacers won’t have him in their mess, and if I put 
him in the foc’s’le there will be a mutiny among the 
men. The best of lawyers would make them restive, 
and this poisonous little blighter would bust up all 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 255 


the restraints of discipline. Not a man in my ship 
would eat or drink with him. I would sooner give 
passage to a plague-stricken Chinky than to that 
Clifford beast.’^ 

I feel for you,” said Madame, smiling. “ We 
will give him a cabin somewhere forrard, and let 
him take his food there. He shall learn what it 
feels like to be a pariah. The experience will do him 
good.” 

expect,” observed Alexander thoughtfully, 

that he will pick his bit of offal in the shaft tunnel. 
He won’t be safe from man-handling anywhere else. 
My stokehold staff would love to put him in their 
fires.” 

Still, however rightly unpopular he may be, we 
can’t leave him here,” declared Madame. I can- 
not have that dear little Mrs. Topy and the jolly 
girls burdened with the swine hound. But we will 
dump him over the side at Singapore, and leave him 
to find his way home from there. We will carry 
him out of harm’s way and then shunt him. I have 
quite decided to disappoint the poachers of St. 
Mary Axe. Once Willie, Lord Topsham, comes 
aboard my yacht, he doesn’t leave it till I hand him 
over to his own Trustees. Sir John Toppys and 
Gatepath will be furious with me, but there is noth- 
ing else to be done. I won’t have the boy plundered 
by those land sharks.” 

Madame’s plans were at once put in train, and it 
quickly spread through the Island that good pay 
was to be won by diving down and cutting weed 
from the Humming Tofs bottom. Willie’s black 
boys deserted his plantation under the magnetic 
pull of the yacht’s treasure chest. Boats full of 


256 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


divers clustered about the vessel throughout all the 
hours of daylight, and every kind of scraper was 
furbished up and turned to account in the novel 
labour. It was given about that the Humming Top 
would sail as soon as her bottom had been made 
tolerably clean, and John Clifford, in dread of 
being marooned for months on Tops Island, was 
prepared to face even Madame’s straight-shooting 
pistol rather than be left there by himself. He 
suspected that Willie would be welcome on board, 
but he cherished no illusions concerning his own 
popularity. He urged his lordly master to ap- 
proach Madame with humility, and to seek passage 
for both. John Clifford, a human ‘‘sucker,” had 
all the remora’s love for free transport. His voyage 
out had occupied months and contained exaspera- 
tions innumerable ; whatever might be his sufferings 
in the detested Humming Top, they could not com- 
pare with the professional disaster of losing his 
hardly won client — spirited off in the yacht — and 
being left himself upon the loathed beach. He was 
insistent upon a free passage for both, the client 
and the lawyer. It cost him the surviving bottles 
in his liquor cases to win the assent of Lord Tops- 
ham, and he would not have won even with their 
fiery aid, had not recollections of the ravished Marie 
been present to Willie’s mind. William, Lord Tops- 
ham, under the stimulus of hot, bad wine, became 
convinced that Madame had done him grievous 
wrong, and was savagely resentful. He had 
spurned her as a goddess. Now he came near to 
spurning her as a woman, and to accepting John’s 
theory that Madame had swept Marie off into cap- 
tivity because the mistress was jealous of his lord- 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 


257 


ship’s attentions to the maid. The pair of them ar- 
gued much as Madame had anticipated. Willie 
would regain his Marie under Madame’s forbidding 
nose, and both would secure a passage to England 
in a luxurious private yacht. Neither appreciated 
the hidden disadvantages. Willie did not realise 
that Marie, given one last chance of reprieve from 
a shameful death in France, would flee from the 
smallest association with himself; and before Clif- 
ford’s mind arose no picture of an outcast Hedge 
Lawyer, spurned as vermin by the humblest sea- 
man, driven to pick his bit of offal in the shaft 
tunnel. 

The preparations for departure went on, and for 
a week Madame Gilbert saw nothing of Willie or 
John Clifford. The lawyer she had not met since 
she had thrust him off the yacht’s deck into the 
mangrove swamp. Mrs. Topy and the girls she en- 
countered now and then. They looked at her sor- 
rowfully, but said little. Some hint of Willie’s in- 
tended abandonment of Tops Island had been con- 
veyed to them, and they grieved. The mother, and 
perhaps the sisters also, realised that if he went 
they would never look upon his face again. He was 
an English Lord ; they were Hulas of New Guinea. 
Lawful inheritance ran in the male line; to the 
women it brought nothing except loss. From the 
artless chatter of Joy and Cry, Madame gathered 
that Willie was working up an appetite for the 
humble pie. He was furious against her, she 
learned, and smiled. Madame had been fond of 
Willatopy, but she felt very little regard for Wil- 
liam, Lord Topsham. She did not care how furious 
he grew so long as he fell in with her plans. 


258 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Willie took his meal as soon as the divers Had all 
been paid off, and the work of cleaning completed — > 
in so far as it could be completed out of dock. He 
approached the camp one evening, observed the 
ostentatious signs of packing up, and then plunged 
into a request that Madame would see him. She 
graciously assented, and he was shown into that 
tent whither not so long since he had fled, a fright- 
ened savage boy, and sobbed out his troubles at 
her feet. Then he had been Willatopy; now he 
was William, Lord Topsham. Just as Willie had 
changed so Madame had changed. She was no 
longer the half-maternal comforter who had nursed 
the frizzy head in her lap and playfully suggested 
that he should really get his hair cut in honour of 
his peerage. Now she received him with ceremony, 
bowed him towards a chair, and seated herself op- 
posite. He who had been so gay and outspoken 
was now tongue-tied, his spirit frozen by the chilly 
atmosphere in which Madame had enwrapped her- 
self. Even then had Madame relented, stretched 
out both her hands, and smiled upon him in the 
old fashion, I believe that the boy would have cast 
aside his absurd pretensions to dignity, and given 
back to her his heart. Madame could, I am con- 
vinced, have made him kiss the dust off her feet. 
But she was still sore and angry. A goddess does 
not take pleasure in being tumbled into ruin by 
a brown half-caste, and Madame, who had brought 
so many white men to her feet, scorned to win an 
easy conquest over Willie. Since he had elected 
to be William, Lord Topsham, he should be treated 
as he deserved. 

Well,” said Madame, as the boy mumbled and 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 


259 


stammered before ber. ^^You wish to speak to 
me? ” 

They say that you are leaving my Island,’’ 
muttered Willie. 

Yes,” replied Madame. There is nothing to 
keep me here now. I stayed as your friend. You 
have spurned me, and I go. My yacht is under 
orders to sail as soon as the camp gear has been 
transferred. I am obliged to you for your hospi- 
tality, Lord Topsham, and should have called to 
bid you farewell and thank you. Since you have 
come I thank you now.” She was certainly not 
making his humble pie very appetising. 

“We have been honoured by your presence, Ma- 
dame,” said he. It was quite a good beginning, 
and gave him courage. “ And since I have been so 
fortunate as to be able to show you hospitality, I 
feel bold enough to request a return favour from 
you.” 

Madame stared. The speech did not sound a bit 
like the composition of Willie — certainly not of the 
old Willatopy — and had little flavour of the Hedge 
Lawyer. There were no books upon the Island from 
which Willie might have gleaned polite phrases. 
The change in him from brown to white, which was 
taking place before her eyes, was almost incredible 
in its speed. She remembered his faithful recol- 
lection of his father’s words, and supposed that 
expressions which the father had used remained 
embedded in the son’s mind. 

“ It will be a real pleasure, Lord Topsham,” said 
she with gravity, “ if I may be permitted to return 
your kind hospitality.” 

“ You once offered me passage to England in the 


^60 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Humming Top/’ said Willie. I refused then but 
I shall no longer refuse if you repeat the offer.” 

Consider it repeated, Lord Topsham,” said Ma- 
dame, and a smile flickered round her lips. Since 
you have decided to go to England it is fitting that 
you should go in a Toppys ship.” 

And my lawyer, Mr. John Clifford?” enquired 
he. A little while since since it had been ‘‘ My 
white slave, John.” Now it was ‘‘My lawyer, Mr. 
John Clifford.” 

“ I will not pretend that I care for the society of 
your lawyer. But I will not be so unkind as to 
separate a client from his legal adviser.” This was 
language above Willie’s head, and it was his turn to 
stare. Madame translated: “John Clifford may 
come in the yacht, but please don’t expect me to 
entertain him myself. You will be my guest, but 
Clifford must fend for himself with the men.” 

“ Of course,” said Willie, indifferently consign- 
ing the Hedge Lawyer to the shaft tunnel. “ He is 
a noxious animal. But he is my lawyer, and I 
would not leave him here.” 

Madame smiled again, and thought of how the 
legal adviser would be shot off into desolate space 
at Singapore. She was willing that he should travel 
thus far in the yacht, and hoped, but without 
confidence, that his voyage would be pleasant. 

“ Thank you, Madame,” said Willie, rising. “ We 
will come aboard when you are ready to receive us. 
Have I your permission to go? ” He was a quick 
lad, very quick to pick up English phrases. 

Madame relaxed at the words, and her old friend- 
ly smile shone out. If Willie had then forgotten 
his ridiculous assumption of dignity and relaxed 


WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS 261 


too, the pair of them might have attained to happy 
reconciliation in one another’s arms. But Fate had 
spoken, and the boy moved towards his destined 
end. How could we sail,” whispered she, with- 
out our Pilot Willatopy? ” 

He frowned. I will sail as your guest, Ma- 
dame. But Lord Topsham is not, and will not be, 
your pilot.” 

Well, well,” muttered Madame as she watched 
him go, I could not have believed that my boy 
Willatopy would so quickly turn into an insuffer- 
able fool. So he is too proud now even to pilot the 
Humming Top. Soon he will be too proud to sail his 
own yawl. His pride will come down with a pretty 
hard bump upon the unkindly soil of England. 
That is some comfort.” 

She sent for Ching, and told him the latest of 
Lord Topsham’s incarnations. He is now much 
too fine a gentleman to navigate a steam yacht. His 
Highness will presently seek the services of a valet 
when his wardrobe has had an opportunity of de- 
velopment. He pictures himself surrounded by 
white slaves among whom you and I have the 
honour of inclusion. Captain, can you manage to 
take the blessed yacht back to Thursday Island 
without butting her aground? That confounded 
Peer would sneer disgustingly at us if we couldn’t 
get through the channels without his help. He 
wants to bring us to our knees imploring his assis- 
tance. I would sooner that the Humming Top were 
wrecked in the Straits and perished with all 
hands.” 

“ I think that I can do it,” said Ching cautiously. 

His young lordship brought us up here so fast and 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


fearlessly that I took no soundings, but I have all 
the channels marked, and the bearings of every 
headland. It stuck in my mind that we might have 
to get back without a pilot, so my first officer or 
myself were on watch all the time in the chart- 
house following the course, charting the channels, 
and working out the bearings. We have had a lot 
of time on our hands here, and have filled some of 
it by constructing a chart of our own of the Torres 
Straits. I can’t con the yacht with the ease and 
certainty of his lordship, but I can get through 
without bumping much on the ground. After we 
pass Thursday Island, it is just deep-sea work up 
to Sunda. I can manage, Madame, I think.” 

This assurance from the careful and competent 
Ching gave Madame Gilbert the utmost satisfac- 
tion. Now that William, Lord Topsham, though 
anxious to take passage in the yacht, had refused 
to work for his living, she would have perished 
rather than seek help from him. He should learn 
that there were others besides himself capable of 
navigating his own familiar seas. She blessed the 
cautious foresight of the complete seaman, Robert 
Ching, and was prepared to trust him to save the 
bottom of the Humming Top and the face of her 
owner. As for William, Lord Topsham, her re- 
sentment began to take root and grow with tropical 
rapidity. The boy Willatopy, whom she had loved, 
was in danger of being obliterated altogether. And 
yet until the Hedge Lawyer appeared to bring woe 
upon the happy Island, he had been a boy eminently 
lovable. 


CHAPTEK XVII 


FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND 

'‘T SPENT nearly two months on Tops Island/^ 
^ said Madame to me, when telling her story in 
Whitehall, and I was exceedingly loath to depart. 
I had by accident picked out the very best season 
in the year. There was not a drop of rain, the big 
sun shone gloriously all day long, and the regular 
rise and fall of the south-east trade wind kept down 
the heat. In my tent, which was wide open by 
night and day, and had generous air spaces be- 
tween the walls and roof, the temperature never 
rose above 85 nor sank below 65. We called that 
winter in the South, but it was just a perfect Eng- 
lish summer, smiling upon the tropical growth of 
a Pacific island. Whenever I thought of a return 
to a desolate European autumn, I shuddered to my 
bones. If I were not an intensely modern woman,” 
she went on refiectively, would spend three 
months of every year in Tops Island. But it takes 
such a devil of a long time to go and return. And 
perhaps my second stay would be so unlike my first 
— there would be no Willatopy and no Humming 
Top — that I should never go again. It is always a 
mistake to seek the repetition of a delightful ex- 
perience. I don’t suppose that I shall ever again 
see little Mrs. Toppys, the Hula wife of wise mad 
, 263 


264 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


William, or those dear girls in the banana-leaf petti- 
coats. They had lost their shyness of me, and clung 
about my neck when the motor boat came to bear 
me off for the last time. I consoled them with 
bright chains for their brown necks, and gave to 
the Topy family two of Sir John’s tents and quite 
a lot of his camp gear. I am afraid that all through 
my Southern adventure I made very free with the 
property of our good profiteer of Wigan. He never 
called me to account, the dear thing. The last I 
saw of my camping ground, as the boat sped off, 
was the three Topy women kneeling on the sand 
crying to me to come back. I wonder what they 
would think of me now if they knew all.” 

William, Lord Topsham, and his legal adviser 
had already gone off in a whaleboat, so that when 
Madame mounted the accommodation ladder all 
was ready for departure. The mooring hawsers 
had been cast off, and the bow anchor cable hauled 
short. The tide was flowing into the bay so that 
the Humming Top’s cutwater pointed towards the 
Coral Sea outside. At a word from Ching, who 
stood alone on the bridge, the steam winches rattled, 
and the anchor was run up. 

John Clifford had discreetly vanished below, but 
Willie stood not far from Madame Gilbert on the 
boat deck. Ching rang for half-speed astern, and 
the long narrow yacht backed into the bay to give 
herself room to make the entrance. At the sound 
of the engines Willie started and his eyes flashed. 
For a moment he became once more the sailor and 
the incomparable pilot. By instinct, rather than 
intention, he moved towards the bridge ladder and 
mounted the rungs. At the top Ching faced him. 


FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND 


265 


Do you wish to take charge, my lord? ” asked 
the Skipper. 

“No,^^ muttered Willie, ‘‘I am not a pilot. I 
am Lord Topsham.” 

‘‘ Then,” replied Ching, very firmly, I must re- 
quest Lord Topsham to leave my bridge. No pas- 
sengers are allowed here.” 

Willie returned to the boat deck and seated him- 
self gloomily by the rail. He could not keep his 
skilled eyes off the channel through which they had 
begun to pass, but he felt grievously the rebuff that 
Ching had dealt him. The loss of Madame’s friend- 
liness had taught him something; the Skipper’s 
cold professional words had taught him more. He 
began to realise that an idle English Lord is of no 
account in a ship in comparison with a pilot. As 
Willatopy, the pilot, he had been, by sheer merit. 
Lord of the Bridge ; now he was titular Lord only 
of Topsham, a far-off Devonshire hamlet. It was a 
bitter lesson in relative values. 

Madame walked over to where he sat, and made 
her last effort towards a reconciliation between the 
new friendless Lord of Topsham and the real world 
of men and women. 

“Willie,” said she gently, “I heard Captain 
Ching. He means that though he won’t have Lord 
Topsham on his bridge he will give the most kindly 
welcome to our pilot Willatopy.” 

But Willie remained stupidly sullen. “There 
isn’t a Willatopy any more,” said he. 

“I am sorry,” said Madame, and for the last 
time she turned her back upon him. She was never 
a patient woman, but I think sometimes that she 
might have commanded a little more patience had 


266 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


she chosen. Willie was, after all, a boy, a boy of 
nineteen, puffed up and exalted by his new uncom- 
prehended dignities. She, a woman of the world, 
a woman of nearly twice his age, might have dealt 
more gently with his boyish follies. I think that 
she would have acted differently had she ever borne 
a son of her own. She would not then have been 
so resentful of the snub of a silly youth. 

Captain Ching, sensible that a far better pilot 
was watching every movement of the vessel, was 
taking no risks. In his cautious navigation there 
was nothing of the splendid free-hand verve of 
Willatopy. With the tide flowing under him he 
was content with eight knots of speed, and the Chief 
Engineer down below, watching the slow response 
of the foul-bottomed yacht to the revolutions of the 
propellers, gave thanks for his superior's modera- 
tion. They toddled along at a vairy economical 
consumption,” they kept rigidly to the deepest of 
channels, there was none of that spirited corner 
cutting so characteristic of the confident Willatopy, 
the performance was altogether lacking in flair, 
but it was safe and sound. Ching made no mis- 
takes, and as Willie watched the course he learned 
yet another lesson — that no man in this world is 
indispensable. He had expected appeals for as- 
sistance, and might perhaps have consented to abate 
the dignity of his lordship, had Madame and Ching 
been reduced by necessity to a gratifying condition 
of grovelling humility. But of that there was no 
sign. The Skipper serenely conned the yacht from 
his own bridge, Madame had disappeared into the 
smoke-room, the sailors moved about upon their 
lawful occasions, the lordly passenger was wholly 


FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND 


267 


neglected. And above all other evidences of in- 
difference to his feelings, the Humming Top pro- 
ceeded steadily upon her way, and never came near 
to a bump on the reefs. 

Presently Willie got up and went sullenly below. 
He had been allotted a handsome stateroom with 
bath and dressing-room attached on the main deck 
— ^it was on the starboard side opposite Madame’s 
quarters — and thither he went and sulked by him- 
self. I am afraid that he. was not happy, and per- 
haps began to grasp some little inkling of the great 
truth that no man is happy unless he fills the place 
and does the job for which he is fitted. On the 
bridge in charge of the yacht he would have grinned 
joyously — the round man in the round hole which 
he perfectly fitted; here in a modern luxurious 
cabin, the boy, who had spent his life in a palm- 
thatched hut, or in a 30-foot yawl, was ill-placed 
and miserable. 

A light step tripped along the corridor outside. 
Willie opened his door and saw Marie vanishing 
into a room just opposite. He called, and she, turn- 
ing, showed for an instant a frightened face. Then 
she vanished, and Willie heard the snap of a drawn 
bolt. So even Marie, his white mistress, had fiown 
at the sight of him, and bolted her door against him. 
He knocked, but there was silence within. He 
waited for what seemed a long time. But the door 
that he watched remained closed. Weary of wait- 
ing he went back to his cabin, lay down on the bed, 
and fell asleep. 

I do not know what had happened to John Clif- 
ford except that he had been given a room aft on 
the main deck, and kept resolutely to his own 


268 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


quarters. His one great anxiety was to keep out 
of sight of that terrible straight-shooting Madame 
Gilbert. 

When night drew on the yacht was brought to 
anchor under shelter of a large cay, and the Skipper 
drew a sigh of deep relief. He felt quite confident 
now that he could tackle the channels, and that his 
carefully constructed chart was to be depended 
upon. He received Madame’s earnest congratula- 
tions with modesty, and the pair of them — closer 
friends now than at any period of their association 
— went down to the saloon for dinner. At the right 
of Captain Ching had been laid a place for William, 
Lord Topsham, and on his left sat Madame Gilbert. 
Beyond her the Chief Engineer had elected to de- 
posit his ample person. When Willie came in, es- 
corted by the now obsequious steward, the other 
three were waiting. The boy was bare-footed — he 
had never worn shoes in his life — and for the first 
time showed some sense of the inadequacy of his 
simple holiday dress of white shirt and Palm Beach 
trousers. He gazed with involuntary admiration 
upon our dazzling Madame — ^who, as always in the 
yacht, wore a dinner dress — and eyed the smart 
uniforms of the officers. He looked down at his 
own brown feet, and passed one hand nervously 
through the long frizzy tresses which stood out 
from his skull. The dark brown of his skin flushed 
into purple. Madame, who saw his embarrassment, 
at once spoke to him exactly as she would have done 
to an English guest. She drew him into the fami- 
liar chat of the group of old friends, and tried to 
make him forget for a moment the raw novelty of 
his inherited social status. Presently they were 


FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND 


269 


all seated at table, and Willie felt more at ease 
now that his obtrusive feet were hidden. Just as 
during that lunch in the saloon of a fortnight 
earlier, he watched how the others handled their 
dinner tools and committed no gaucheries. Unob- 
trusively, Madame observed and approved. The 
boy had many of the instincts of a gentleman; if 
only he could summon sense to his aid there might 
be hopes for him. But when she thought of that 
unstable mixed blood, unstable as nitro-glycerine, 
she sighed. More was needed than a smattering of 
carefully acquired table manners to turn a half- 
caste Hula into a civilised white man. 

Willie observed that no wine was served at 
dinner, and that no liqueurs accompanied the after- 
dinner coffee. The Humming Top had become a 
“ dry ship.” By Madame^s orders — accepted 
heartily by Ching, and no less heartily, though sor- 
rowfully, by Alexander — the carefully selected 
cellar of Sir John Toppys had been locked up, and 
the key deposited in Ching’s pocket. As with the 
saloon so also with the officers’ mess and foc’s’le. 
There were many groans and deep curses, but Ma- 
dame was loved, and the senior officers respected. 
The need for the ordinance had been discreetly ex- 
plained and accepted. His lordship was heartily 
consigned to the bottomless pit, but there was no 
mutiny. 

It was in the smoke-room afterwards that Willie 
sprang upon our friends a request which showed 
how the white blood was beginning to stir in his 
veins. The Skipper had announced his intention 
not to stop at the unattractive Thursday Island, but 
to make without delay for the deep water beyond. 


270 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


I should like to have a word with Mr. Grant,” 
observed Madame. She was anxious, if that were 
possible, to remove, by adroit explanations, the ill- 
opinion which she feared Willatopy’s austere bank- 
er would form of her proceedings. 

Better go straight on,” growled Ching stolidly. 

Very well,” Madame sighed, for she hated that 
any man should think ill of her. Then Willie broke 
in. He was sitting with those conspicuous bare feet 
tucked under him, and with his eyes fixed on Ma- 
dame’s neat shoes and perfectly fitting silk 
stockings. 

I hope that you will stop,” said he shyly. I 
wish to go ashore.” 

Is it urgent, Willie? ” asked Madame. Had 
we better not get on now that we have started for 
home? ” 

“I should like to see my banker. He was my 
father^s friend, and has been very good to me. I 
should like to get some money.” 

‘‘We have plenty here. Thanks to the business 
operations of the great Alexander, our treasure 
chest is bursting with wealth. We can supply all 
that you need.” 

“ I want,” murmured Willie, and his dark skin 
flushed again with that significant purple. “I 
want — to — get — some — clothes — and some shoes.” 

Madame looked away, and tried not to smile. 
“ Certainly, if you wish. I quite understand. We 
will stop for a few hours, Captain.” 

The Skipper grunted, and reluctantly gave in. 
He could not say that he had elected to give Port 
Kennedy a miss in order that the dryness of the 
Humming Top might not be tempered by fiery 


FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND 


271 


island liquors. He knew very well what would hap- 
pen if Lord Topsham and his seducer, John Clifford, 
were let loose upon that outpost of white civilisa- 
tion. 

Down below, when later Willie descended, he 
again caught a glimpse of his Marie. But again she 
fled from him, skipped into an empty cabin, and 
fastened the door against him. Again he waited, 
and did not retire to his own room until he heard 
Madame^s steps approach. Madame Gilbert had de- 
liberately chosen that he should be housed where his 
doings could be kept under her close personal ob- 
servation. Willie, in his cabin, heard the mistress 
and maid go to their own quarters, and devoured his 
nails in helpless rage. His boyish love for Madame 
had already gone ; in its place was growing up a pas- 
sion not far removed from hate. Was he, a great 
English Lord, to be cabined and spied on by a mere 
widow? She had cut him off from the wine which 
he was learning to love, and she had so terrified 
Marie that the girl was afraid even to look upon 
him. The goddess whom he had spurned he now 
cursed. 

Marie, eager above all things to earn that re- 
prieve of which Madame had hinted, told how she 
had escaped from Willie, and locked herself up at 
his approach. Her degenerate passions had been 
stirred by Willie’s colour, and she had sought to 
advance herself by a marriage with an English Lord 
before the boy could recover from her novel fascina- 
tions. But of love for him, in the nobler sense, she 
had not a scrap. She would sacrifice half-a-dozen 
Lord Topshams, now that she had no prospect of 
marrying one of them, to be saved from a return to 


9n% 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


that awful revengeful France. Eagerly, in rapid 
emphatic French, she spread before Madame the 
proofs of her abandonment of Lord Topsham, and 
again and again protested her resolution never, 
never to sport with him again. She would not 
speak with him if she could possibly help. If he 
touched her she would shriek for protection. 

But, Madame,” she went on, I am as fright- 
ened of him as I am of you. I have seen in his 
bright blue eyes that cold look for murder which 
sometimes glares out from yours. I feel sure that 
he will kill me. But I would sooner that he killed 
me — if he did it quickly — than that I should be 
tried and shot in France. The shooting I might 
face bravely — death many times came near me in 
Amiens and I smiled upon it — but the trial, the 
awful remorseless faces, the shame and the horror 
of my treachery, the cold, deliberate preparations 
for my death — I could not face them, Madame. I 
would far sooner kill myself now at your feet.” 

Keep that shame and terror before you,” said 
Madame harshly. They shall be yours if you dis- 
obey me, even for one instant. For you then there 
shall be no escape by the easy way of suicide. I 
will have you locked up and watched day and night 
by my sailors.” 

From Tops Island to Port Kennedy is about one 
hundred miles, and the Humming Top^ at the cau- 
tious speed set by Ching, did not arrive until the 
early afternoon of the second day out. She had 
come through all the channels without touching 
once, and the First Officer, who with Ching had pre- 
pared the home-made chart, shook hands with him 
in mutual congratulation. 


FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND 


273 


said the First, ^^is a great occasion 
wasted. What it really needs is a long drink.” 

It does,” lamented Ching. I have always 
been strictly temperate in my habits, and will have 
no officer or man with me who cannot be trusted 
to keep down his elbow. But this terrible drought 
which has fallen upon the Humming Top makes me 
dream of bottles by night and think of them by 
day. The most beautiful music which I could hear 
would be the flop of a pulled-out cork.” 

There is nothing to do now, sir,” whispered the 
First. “ Shall we hand over to the Second — he is 
a happy teetotaller — and go ashore — for a stroll? ” 
I think that we might,” replied the Skipper 
judicially. I think that we might. For a stroll. 
After all those hours on the bridge my legs are 
powerful stiff.” 

The boat which took the Skipper and First Offi- 
cer for their stroll also contained Willie and eTohn 
Clifford. No one except the officers’ steward had 
seen John Clifford since he came aboard. He lived 
in the seclusion of his cabin aft, to which retreat 
sustenance was borne by the not unkindly steward. 
Clifford during the voyage on a hostile ship desired 
nothing so much as forgetfulness of his presence — ^ 
the steward always excepted. 

An hour or so after the others had gone, Madame 
had herself put ashore in the motor launch, and 
went up to Grant’s office. The banker received her 
at once, and she found him much agitated. 

^^Willatopy has been here, yet told me little,” 
said he. He made a larger demand upon me for 
money than he has done hitherto, and, though he 
is a minor, I felt unable to refuse. As trustee, I 


274 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


have invested the Topy funds for years, and the 
family of Baru are much richer than they realise. 
I noticed a very marked change in Willatopy, a 
most lamentable change. Tell me everything, Ma- 
dame Gilbert.” 

He is not Willatopy any longer. He is William, 
Lord Topsham.” 

So I suspected. Now I fear the worst. I 
warned you to sail away in your accursed yacht 
and trouble the boy no more.” 

Madame told all that she knew, all that I have 
told in this book. She described, with genuine 
emotion, her happy days on the Island of Tops, her 
friendship with the simple brown family, the shark 
hunt, and the wild fishing on the Barrier Reef. 
When she came to the casting up of the Hedge 
Lawyer on the peaceful strand of Baru, her listener 
groaned. Wheresoever the carcass is there will 
the vultures be gathered together.” She explained 
eagerly, anxiously — for she valued the good opinion 
of this honest Scotsman — how she had tried to win 
the confidence of Willatopy, and to set at naught 
the unscrupulous seductions of the legal poacher. 
She admitted failure. She showed how Willatopy 
had been led astray, first, by the visit in the yawl 
to Thursday Island, and the introduction to port 
and cherry brandy — (‘‘He never came near me 
then,” ejaculated Grant) — and, secondly, by the 
wiles of the French girl Marie. She ended by de- 
claring that Willie, godless — ^for he had spurned 
his gods — ^was on his way to England. 

“ He has come ashore,” said she, “ to buy clothes 
and shoes.” 

“And Clijfford has come to buy drink,” added 


FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND 


275 


Grant. Among you all you have ruined my poor 
boy. He was a brave honest lad, and you are mak- 
ing of him a devil. I could bring myself to curse 
you, Madame Gilbert.” 

“ It was not my fault,” pleaded Madame, in dis- 
tress. I am as grieved as you possibly can be. 
Even if I had followed my first righteous impulse, 
and thrown John Clifford to the sharks, another 
vulture would have followed after a ripe carcass. 
In my hands Willie was becoming white. It was 
the lawyer and Marie who corrupted him, not I.” 

You carried the girl Marie to him.” 

“ Mr. Grant. You are a just man who knows the 
world. If it had not been John Clifford it would 
have been some other hedge lawyer. If it had not 
been Marie, it would have been some other shame- 
less white woman. I have at least done something 
to protect Willatopy from his lawyer, and I have 
stopped utterly the intrigue with Marie. In order 
that Willie may not in his ignorance be plundered, 
I shall take him now to England, and put him in 
the legal charge of his own Trustees of Topsham. 
The Hedge Lawyer shall be shot ashore at Singa- 
pore, and left there baffled and marooned. I can 
still save Willatopy from the worst disasters that 
threaten him.” 

“ I have never doubted your good intentions, Ma- 
dame. Hell is paved with good intentions. If you 
had intended to carry him off you should have 
done it at once. In the yacht you could have kept 
the boy and the girl apart. I gravely fear that 
your precautions are now too late. You may stop 
the intrigue, but you will conjure up new perils. 
Remember that Willatopy is of the blood of New 


£76 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 

Guinea Lead liunters and ceremonial cannibals. He 
is by no more than two generations removed from 
untrammelled bloodthirsty man-eaters. Under the 
restraint which you now put upon his passions, he 
will turn towards revenge. I pray that murder 
may not be done in your beautiful yacht yonder. 
Believe me, you and that girl Marie, you no less 
than the girl, go in grievous peril. You should have 
foreseen, after my warning, the danger of bringing 
that intemperate maid of yours to Tops Island. 
You are deceiving yourself if you suppose that the 
evil train which she has led can be rendered harm- 
less by any damping now.” 

‘‘ Surely you would not . . .” began Madame in 
astonishment, but Grant cut in brusquely : 

“ No, of course not. Though it would now be the 
lesser peril. I have warned you once, and you dis- 
regarded my words. I will most gravely and 
solemnly warn you again. In that yacht you will 
live in daily, hourly peril of your life. You are a 
woman of high courage. It is written upon your 
face. But I implore you for once to live in fear — 
for yourself and your maid.” 

I hesitate to believe you,” said Madame, slowly 
and thoughtfully. ^‘Willie has not changed so 
much as that would imply. His head is swollen 
with a sense of high lordship, but I am certain that 
he would not raise his hand against me. I allow' 
that danger threatens Marie, and I will guard her 
against it. But for myself, no. The boy has wor- 
shipped me as a goddess; he has knelt at my feet 
and kissed my coat. He has flown to me in trouble, 
and I have comforted him. He has changed 
towards me, but not by so much as all that.” 


FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND m 

For twelve years he worshipped his father as a 
live god. For seven more years, until almost yes- 
terday, he worshipped his father’s memory, and 
treasured all the little words of wisdom which fell 
from the lips of the god. Where is that father’s 
godship now? The solid image of the father has 
been overthrown just as you — a newly erected idol 
— have been overthrown. I say to you again, Ma- 
dame Gilbert: Live in Fear, in Hourly Deadly 
Fear.” 

When Madame rose to go, the Scotsman rose with 
her. He smiled kindly upon her and held out his 
hands. She took them both and pressed them with 
affection. 

Have you forgiven me? ” whispered she. 

I cannot forgive you,” said Grant, but though 
his words were stern his eyes smiled kindly. I 
can never forgive you, but I acquit you wholly of 
evil intention. The evil that we do, however free 
from intention, lives after us, and sometimes it 
lives longer than we do. Take grave heed to my 
warning, for I wish you well.” 

Madame smiled almost gaily as she walked away. 
Grant, in words, had denied to her forgiveness, but 
his smile had been a benediction. She thought to 
dismiss his warning, but it marched with her, and 
would not be thrust aside. Almost against her 
own will she found herself examining the doors of 
her cabin, of Marie’s adjoining room, and of the 
bath and dressing-room on the other side. All the 
rooms opened upon the corridor from which Willie’s 
cabin also opened. Marie entered as Madame was 
testing the strong brass bolts with which the doors 
were fitted. 


278 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Always be careful to bolt your door at night/’ 
commanded Madame. You are within the width 
of a passage from two great dangers : the love and 
the hatred of Lord Topsham. I do not know which 
is the more deadly. Bolt your door firmly against 
both.” 

Marie promised, for she already walked in the 
Hourly Deadly Fear demanded by the banker 
Grant. When the maid had left her, Madame 
picked up her automatic, flicked open the magazine, 
and saw that five cartridges lay within. In her 
stormy life that pistol, always loaded, had never 
been far from her hand. She had neglected some- 
what of habitual precaution in the yacht, but 
Grant’s words, spoken with the most solemn energy, 
would not be thrust away. She selected a bit of 
ribbon, and tied it to the ring on the pistol butt. 
Then she adjusted a loop to her own wrist. 

It is quite like old times,” murmured Madame, 
when she had adjusted the ribbon so that the pistol 
hung conveniently from her wrist with the butt 
against her quick fingers. “ It is quite like old 
times when I never went to sleep without this bravo 
little fellow at my right hand. And sometimes but 
for his comforting presence I might almost have 
been frightened.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 

■jy/r ADAME GILBERT, standing by the rail, 
watched the boat come alongside which bore 
Lord Topsham and his legal adviser from Port Ken- 
nedy. They appeared to have been shopping with 
energy, for the boat was laden with packages. 
Among the spoils of Thursday Island were three 
wooden cases around which the seamen clustered, 
like wasps about honey, when they had been hauled 
up and laid upon the deck. Ching, who was stand- 
ing beside Madame, and looking the happier for 
his stroll ashore, frowned savagely. 

Shall I have them thrown overboard?” asked 
he. 

Madame did not reply. She was speechless with 
the fury of one who has been outraged publicly. 
Picture to yourself the feelings of a hostess who in- 
vites guests to dinner, and watches them enter her 
drawing-room, each with a bottle under the arm. 
Though strong drink may not be looked for at her 
board, does she not regard this ostentatious liquid 
supplement to her hospitality as a public outrage? 
So Madame felt in her dry ship ” when Lord 
Topsham and his slave John brought their cases of 
alcoholic refreshment aboard. For a moment she 
was strongly inclined to let Ching have his will, but 
reflected that even if guests should bring their own 
279 


280 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


liquor to one’s dinner, one should not retaliate by 
smashing the bottles on the carpet. The only ade- 
quate retort would be to write the cads’ names off 
the list of one’s acquaintance. That is exactly what 
Madame was most disposed to do. She seriously 
thought of instantly sending Willie and Clifford to 
the right about with their baggage, and leaving 
them to find some other means of transport than the 
Humming Top, Had Willie been educated in the 
ways of white men she would certainly have shot 
him forth. But she realised that the blame lay with 
the man Clifford, and that she could not dismiss 
the servant while retaining the master. It must be 
both or neither. And while she hung upon the edge 
of decision, Willie himself determined the issue by 
one of those small unconscious actions which so 
often determine human destinies. He looked up, 
saw Madame, forgot for a moment his resentment 
against her, and smiled as the Willatopy of old had 
been wont to smile. 

I had just made up my mind to send the pair of 
them packing off to Port Kennedy,” said Madame 
to me, when the boy looked up and smiled. There 
was an unholy fascination about the brown crea- 
ture, and sometimes I almost came within sym- 
pathetic range of my wicked maid Marie. The 
bright blue eyes, which shone like the sky at dawn, 
had a potency which no woman could wholly resist. 
When he smiled at me then, I remembered the boy 
who had kissed my wet trench coat — and I let him 
be. The cases were taken down to Willie’s cabin. 
I was beaten again, and as soon as I was set free 
from the charm of those eyes, suffered the agonies 
of defeat. But I was helpless. I could not ostracise 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 281 


that wretch Clifford any more than he was already 
ostracised. One cannot exile an inhabitant of Cov- 
entry in his own city. If our relations had not 
suffered so great a change, had not a gulf of bitter 
resentment yawned between us, I would have rea- 
soned with the boy Willie — ^who at heart was a 
natural born gentleman — and have shown him his 
error, as I had done when he ordered port to be 
served in my own smoke-room. If that Clifford 
ever turns up again, and approaches within pistol 
shot of me, even in Piccadilly Circus at noonday, I 
am sure that I shall plug a hole in his waistcoat.’^ 
Our Madame is a very human woman ; she can love 
and she can hate, and after years of friendship and 
intimate knowledge of her, I cannot tell which is 
the more dangerous — her love or her hate. 

Wine in cases was not the only result of Willie’s 
shopping expedition in the outpost of white re- 
sources. He had gone ashore to gather covering for 
his feet and person which would be in harmony with 
his exalted dignity. The boy, who had happily 
roamed almost naked about his own island, and 
had lived for nineteen years the simple, untram- 
melled life of a native, had now become obsessed 
with the vice of clothes. 

Madame Gilbert was standing in the saloon, wait- 
ing for her fellow diners to collect, when the shuffle 
of strange feet behind fell upon her quick ears. She 
spun round and beheld a portent. Lord Topsham 
had entered, a Lord Topsham transfigured most 
abominably. Upon his shoulders hung an ill-fitting 
dinner jacket, pumps of incredible vastness covered 
his broad, naturally developed feet, and the edges 
of his black trousers — ^some three inches too long — 


282 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


trailed upon the carpet. Upon what long-neglected 
peg in Thursday Island that villainous suit had 
hung, and for how long, Madame was never privi- 
leged to discover. Willie, in delighted zeal, had 
torn it down, and wrapped it about himself, and 
now stood forth the perfect European. Madame 
had been so completely absorbed in Willie^s clothes 
that some few seconds passed before her eyes 
travelled upwards to his head. Then she had a 
further surprise — his long, frizzy hair had been 
cropped quite close to his skull. 

The boy, in equipping himself as the Lord Top- 
sham of his imagination, had lost for ever all the 
natural dignity of Willatopy. He had become the 
very image of an uncouth brown waiter in a Pacific 
Island hotel. It was pitiful, and Madame hung 
poised between laughter and tears. 

‘^Am I all right, Madame?” asked Willie 
anxiously. John fastened my tie. I could not do 
it myself.” 

“ You are quite all right,” said Madame kindly. 

You were very lucky to find so splendid a dinner 
jacket in Thursday Island.” 

He glowed with pleasure, and stretched out a 
black, shining foot. I am not ashamed now to sit 
at dinner with you, Madame.” 

At this moment Ching and Alexander entered, 
and, like the gentlemen that they were, paid no ap- 
parent attention to the transfigured Willie. But 
they were appalled at the change which had been 
wrought upon him by that dreadful apparel. Never 
before had they so vividly realised the power of 
clothes to make or mar the human form. Willie, 
at his first effort, had unhappily chosen the most 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 283 


cruelly searching of all human vestments. He had 
aspired to the heights and fallen into the depths. 

They were still lying off Port Kennedy, for the 
Skipper did not propose until morning dawned to 
guide the Humming Top through the narrow bottle- 
neck of the Straits. They dined in comfort on an 
even keel, and afterwards Willie disappeared to 
go to his cabin, and there, with his slave John, to 
supplement Madame’s austere hospitality. 

At about eleven o’clock there happen^ an inci- 
dent which has some significance in this story. 
Willie, whose thoughts were never far away from 
the Marie whose charms had been denied to him, 
and was ever on the alert to encounter her, had 
come into the corridor outside his cabin, and seen 
Marie’s white skirt passing through an open door. 
He sprang, and before she could slip within, had 
gripped her hand in his iron fist. 

Now I have you,” he whispered. “ At last” 

He pulled her towards him, but the girl strained 
away. She looked fearfully up and down the cor- 
ridor. 

Kiss me, Marie,” murmured Willie. You can- 
not escape me now.” 

Still she strained away from him in terror. Then 
suddenly she relaxed, and he got his arm about her 
waist. She no longer resisted him, seemed not to 
be looking at him, and he was puzzled by a placid 
indifference which he had never before experienced 
in her. He had his arm round her waist, and she 
was gazing intently over his shoulder. 

Willie threw back his head, and followed the di- 
rection of the girl’s eyes. Six feet distant Madame 
Gilbert was standing in the corridor gazing upon 


284 . 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


the pair with that sombre deadly look which chilled 
the blood of Marie, and sobered even the ardent, 
wine-inspired Lord of Topsham. 

He released the girl, who immediately vanished, 
and turned savagely upon Madame. She said noth- 
ing. He moved towards her, and seized both her 
elbows. He thrust her against the wall, and held 
her there motionless. 

Madame is very strong, physically, but she tells 
me that she never puts forth the strength of her 
body against that of a man. 

‘‘Whenever a man seizes me in anger I never 
struggle,” she has often said to me. “ A physical 
broil between a man and a woman must always 
end to the discomfiture of the woman. To the 
greater power of a man I oppose exaggerated femi- 
nine weakness.” 

With muscles deliberately limp, she stood against 
the w^all in Willie’s grip, her breast rising and fall- 
ing quietly, her cold, fearless eyes holding him im- 
movably. He approached his face to hers until each 
could see the tiny refiection of self in the other’s 
pupils. Willie’s breath, charged with the fumes of 
bad and fiery port, beat upon Madame’s senses. 
She suffered from a momentary nausea, but the 
steadiness of her gaze continued unabated. 

He was trying to beat her down with the power 
of his eyes, but, just then, they had no charm for 
Madame Gilbert. They were no longer the eyes 
of Willatopy before whose radiance her heart had 
often melted; they were the drink-suffused eyes of 
Lord Topsham, an enemy. She put forth all her 
moral energy, and stared him into disquiet. And 
when his eyelids began to blink and flicker, she 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 285 


knew that she had won. The savage light died out, 
and he released her elbows. He stepped back, and 
she was free. Still calm, she bowed slightly as one 
bidding farewell to a distant acquaintance, and 
walked slowly towards her own door. With the 
snap of her drawn bolt the spell broke, and Willie 
also moved away. He felt humiliated, as one who 
had suffered defeat. As he had stood there facing 
Madame, there had come upon him a savage lust 
to fasten his talons in the beautiful white throat, 
and to choke the cold light of scorn out of her lovely 
eyes. But he could not do it. He had spumed her, 
and felt that he hated her, but there still remained 
for him about her something of the aura of a god- 
dess. 

Madame was very thoughtful as Marie undressed 
her that evening. She said nothing to the girl, for 
she had perceived her attempts to repulse Lord 
Topsham. She had confidence in Marie’s terrors if 
not in her virtue. But the brief contest of wills 
without had made a deep impression. She per- 
ceived that the struggle for mastery between the 
half-savage boy and herself had begun seriously. 
As the wise man Grant had predicted, the boy was 
growing into a peril. She had beaten him once in 
the tense silent battle of eyes, but could she always 
reckon upon time and opportunity wdthin which to 
achieve another victory? Madame lay deep in 
thought upon her bed, and fingered delicately the 
butt of that faithful companion which now always 
slept beside her. 

A couple of hours later, while she still lay sleep- 
less, a loud noise of shouting and singing arose from 
the cabin opposite. Willie and John Clifford had 


286 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


been broaching the cases of sweet fiery port, and 
had become drunkenly exuberant. This was, I be- 
lieve, the first time that Willie had passed over the 
alcoholic border into actual intoxication. Madame 
listened to the unseemly racket, which resounded 
now through the silent anchored ship, and again 
toyed with the automatic. 

Drink and Lust and explosive half-blood,” mur- 
mured she. The blood of Old Devon and of sav- 
age Melanesia. I wonder what the end of it all will 
be.” 

That end came with appalling suddenness, with- 
out warning or preparation. Madame alone in the 
ship was ready, for she who had for five years lived 
amid quick storms and unheralded perils was 
always ready. For three days the yacht had been 
steaming slowly up towards the Straits of Sunda. 
Willie in public had been surly and reserved; he 
had not again fallen upon the apprehensive Marie 
— too intently busied upon working out her reprieve 
to relax in favour towards him — and had shown no 
overt hostility to Madame. Every night he had 
drunk deeply with John Clifford, and the noise of 
their joint libations had disturbed Madame Gil- 
bert’s rest. The once healthy boy, splendid in his 
tireless virility, was degenerating fast. From day 
to day the decline could be seen in the greyness of 
his face, and in the tremor of his strong thin fingers. 
The shoes which he insisted upon wearing crippled 
his free movements. Once conspicuously elastic 
of tread — he had seemed to move on steel springs 
— ^he now slouched and shuffled. Madame never 
saw Clifford, but she heard his voice nightly in the 
cabin opposite, and I am sure that she ached to 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 287 


slay him. She longed for Singapore, and for the 
final expulsion of the Hedge Lawyer, who was re- 
sponsible for the woes of a once happy Toppys 
yacht, and of the once happy Tops Island. He was 
working fast for Willie^s destruction, but he did 
not understand the explosive material with which 
he worked. In the end he lost — at the moment 
when it seemed to his narrow intelligence that the 
white slave had become the white master. 

It was after midnight, Madame was abed, and 
for once the potations of the drinkers did not cul- 
minate in a noise which disturbed her sleep. For 
once Willie had dismissed Clifford at an early hour, 
and bent himself to carry out his own delayed yet 
cherished schemes. Something of the cunning of 
the white man had tempered the desires of the sav- 
age; he had deliberately ceased to pursue Marie, 
and thought to dim the bright polish of Madame’s 
unfailing watchfulness. 

Nothing was to be heard that night save the whirr 
of the high-speed turbines, and nothing to be felt 
except the quivering vibration of the yacht’s frames. 
Although the cabin opposite was unwontedly quiet, 
Madame Gilbert did not sleep. The change from 
noise to silence oppressed her. She was more wake- 
ful and watchful than she had been for some days ; 
she had learned that the unexpected always hap- 
pens and she was waiting, apprehensively, for the 
violently unexpected. She did not, as Grant had 
advised, pass her days and nights in deadly fear — 
it was no strange experience for her to watch and 
wait with that faithful companion within grip of 
her fingers--*but both her days and nights were 
Jbrijnful qf apprehension and sorrow. She had 


288 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


faintly hoped that the old spirit of Willatopy would 
revive when the well-beloved seas girt him about, 
and his feet trod the decks of a ship. She had 
hoped that the salt of the sea would call irresistibly 
to the salt in his blood. But the strong, rich drinks 
of Thursday Island were more potent than any sea 
salt. Willatopy was gone for ever. There re- 
mained a visibly degenerating Lord Topsham. 

Suddenly she heard the soft closing of a door. 
The sound was quite near. She sat up and listened. 
A faint light, reflected from the sea, came through 
her cabin scuttles; she could make out the closed 
doors of her room — ^the bathroom door behind her, 
Marie’s door in front, and that other which led into 
the corridor at her right. Her rooms were on the 
port side of the main deck. But though the upper 
part of the cabin was faintly illuminated, the deck 
lay in the deepest shadow. 

Madame heard nothing, but straight before her 
she saw the communicating door between her room 
and Marie’s open half-way and then close. Some- 
one had penetrated her room by way of the bath- 
room door, crawled past her bed along the deck, 
and slipped without sound into her maid’s cabin. 

A gust of fury shook her. She did not seek to 
enquire whether Marie were a victim or an accom- 
plice. Just as when those cases of liquor had come 
aboard, she felt the humiliation of outrage. Her 
room had been made flagrant use of as a surrepti- 
tious passage to her maid’s ; her one passion at that 
moment was for instant vengeance. 

She stretched forth her left hand, and snapped 
on the electric lights. In her other hand was 
gripped the loaded automatic. 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 289 


The lights flashed on, and Marie’s door opened 
wide. On the threshold stood Lord Topsham, clad 
only in a pair of pyjama trousers. The dark brown 
skin of his body glowed in the light. He himself 
paused, momentarily dazzled. 

Behind him rang out a shriek followed instantly 
by a howl from Willie. White arms were wound 
about his neck. Marie had sprung upon his back, 
and clung to him shrieking. 

Willie staggered into Madame’s room, and some 
hard object, which had been in his hand, fell upon 
the deck. Madame heard the ring of steel upon 
wood. Then he raised both hands, and fastened 
his Angers into the soft upper arms of the girl who 
had sprung upon him. Those fingers, contracted 
with the full force of Willie’s powerful muscles, bit 
into Marie’s flesh, and she screamed with a pain 
which was even greater than her terror. The re- 
morseless fingers ground and bit, and the grip of 
Marie’s arms relaxed. Then Willie bent almost 
to the deck, and with a heave of his loins flung 
Marie, a whirl of white tangled draperies, against 
the cabin wall. She brought up with a sickening 
crunch against the hard steel-backed panelling, and 
lay insensible along the wainscot. 

Willie stooped and picked up that which he had 
dropped. Madame sat upon her hammock-bed, 
motionless, scarcely breathing, every scrap of ner- 
vous energy concentrated in her eyes and skilled 
right hand. As one whose life hung by a thread, 
which she alone could preserve intact, she watched 
intently Willie’s every movement. 

He stooped and picked up the trench dagger 
which at Marie’s onslaught he had dropped. The 


290 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


light ran up and down the thin sharp blade. Ma- 
dame watched Willie feel the point with his thumb, 
and settle his fingers comfortably about the grip. 
He did not hurry, and as he grasped the dagger 
firmly, and struck out gently once or twice to en- 
joy a sense of its handiness, the broad lips curled 
back from his white teeth. 

Then he sprang straight at Madame. It was the 
launching of a human steel-tipped javelin. 

He was ten feet away from her when he sprang, 
and six feet distant when her pistol cracked like a 
vicious whip lash. In the act of firing she threw 
herself backwards. The brown boy, carried irresist- 
ibly forward by the impetus of his leap, fell diago- 
nally across Madame’s body, the outstretched dag- 
ger-tipped arm passing close over her face. He fell 
across her, pinning her down, and the hammock bed 
creaked and swung with the shock. The stricken 
boy lay across Madame, his hands and feet tearing 
at the deck as the bed swung, his body heaving and 
writhing in convulsions. Under him she lay pinned 
down, and felt within her own living frame every 
quiver and pang of his dissolution. 

The hammock bed slowed down in its swing, and 
the hands and feet of William, Lord Topsham, 
trailed helplessly. His brown half-naked body was 
quiet now. The sudden leap, the quick deadly shot, 
the last agonies, had not filled up sixty seconds, 
yet they left Madame aged by their rapid passage. 
In those seconds some of her old light-heartedness 
had gone from her. She felt little sorrow for the 
Lord Topsham who had sought to slay her, and 
whom she had killed in the act, but her heart wept 
ibitterly for the WiUatopy .whom he pnqe had beep. 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 291 


The bed and the body came to rest together, and 
all was still. 

“ Marie,” called Madame. There was no response 
from the white heap which lay where it had been 
flung. 

‘‘Marie,” Madame cried again, “es tu morte?” 

It was the silliest of enquiries, yet it penetrated 
the dulled ear of the sorely bruised girl. 

Ouiy Madame’’ groaned Marie. Je suis morte, 
morte, dbsolumenV’ 

“ So that’s all right,” cried Madame, much re- 
lieved. The maid had risen to a lofty eminence in 
the opinion of the mistress, when she, inspired by 
her brave French blood, had sprung upon the back 
of the murder-filled savage. She had staked her 
life, and come nigh to losing her stake, to gain time 
for the mistress whom she had no great reason to 
love. 

“ I am pinned down and cannot move,” explained 
Madame. “ Try to open the door and then scream 
as loudly as you can.” 

“ Where is the terrible Lord? ” muttered Marie, 
still not wholly conscious. “ I woke with his face 
against mine. He pricked my breast with his sharp 
steel.” 

“ Tell me later,” cried Madame. “ He is dead. 
Open the door and scream.” 

The heap moved slowly, and Marie somehow got 
the door open. Then she howled. 

A steward ran up and thrust in his gaping hoad. 

“ Call the Captain,” ordered Madame sharply. 

Summoned by an urgent message, of which he 
could make no sense, Ching leaped down from his 


292 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


bridge and a moment later stepped over Marie^s 
body into Madame’s cabin. 

Madame, lying with Willie stretched across her, 
his feet and hands drooping to the deck on either 
side, raised her right hand, and beckoned to the 
Skipper with her pistol muzzle. 

“ See, I have killed him. It happened very 
quickly.” 

Before the slow-witted Skipper could, take in this 
astonishing situation, Alexander Ewing burst 
through the ring of sailors which had clustered 
about the door. A rumour had flown through the 
ship that Madame Gilbert was dead. Alexander 
burst into her cabin, white and shaking, for he loved 
her. 

The air still reeked with the acrid taste of burnt 
cordite, and for a moment Alexander could see no 
more of Madame than a glorious mass of copper 
tresses on the white pillow beyond Willie’s 
shoulder. He groaned Is she dead? Is our Ma- 
dame really dead? ” 

‘^Not much,” came the voice which he loved. 

If you will lift off the body of this unhappy, fool- 
ish boy, you will find me very much alive, Sandy 
dear.” 

They raised with gentle hands the limp body of 
the Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham, who never 
now would enter upon his hereditary dignities; 
they lifted the body, and laid it on the floor. There 
was no sign about him of a weapon, and both men 
looked enquiringly at Madame. She pointed be- 
tween her bed and the wall, and Ewing leaning over 
picked up the trench dagger. 

That explains all,” said he as he threw it down 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 293 


by the corpse. “It is sharp and deadly, Ching. 
Madame had no choice but to shoot.” 

“ I was sure of that before I saw the dagger,” 
said Ching coldly. 

Madame swung herself out of bed, and wrapped 
a dressing-grown about her blue pyjamas. She 
stood beside Alexander Ewing, looking down upon 
the body of the boy whom she had shot. The blue 
eyes, half open, had lost their brightness. No longer 
were they like the sky at dawn. Death falling 
swiftly had wiped out their colour. A large 
scorched patch appeared on the broad chest of him 
who had been called Lord Topshaln, and in the 
centre, over the heart, was the deep print of Ma- 
dame’s bullet. The small sharp bullet had passed 
right through him ; they found it later embedded in 
the woodwork of Marie’s door. Madame looked 
down at the scorched breast, and at the tiny hole 
through which a life had sped; her lips twitched 
painfully, and she held back a sob. She looked up 
pitifully at the two men, both her loving friends ; 
at Ching, whose faith in her cool judgment had not 
asked for the proof of Willie’s dagger; at Alexander, 
to whom the discovery of that weapon had brought 
a deep sense of relief. Ching stood erect, thinking 
deeply, but Alexander, with quicker sympathy, 
moved a step, and laid his arm about Madame’s 
shoulders. 

“ Brave lass,” he whispered, as she cuddled her- 
self to him. 

“ I had to shoot, Sandy,” she murmured. “ It 
was a very close call, Sandy.” 

“ Brave lass,” said he again, and stooping down, 
kissed the twitching lips. 


294 


MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


‘‘Thank you, Sandy dear,” said Madame. ‘^I 
am only a woman thing, after all.” 

But though only a woman thing, Madame, an 
instant later, gave them an exhibition of her rapid 
relentless quality. Into the room penetrated a red- 
faced slobbering figure. Roused out of his drunken 
slumbers by a realisation of the total failure of his 
evil plans, J ohn Clifford came for the last time into 
the silent presence of his human spoil. 

He saw the body lying upon its back on the floor ; 
he saw Madame standing by with the pistol still 
dangling from her wrist. The wide burnt mark 
made by the flaming cordite and the bullet hole told 
their tale. The base creature, who did not lack for 
courage, turned furiously upon Madame in the pres- 
ence of her loyal friends. 

“ Murderess,” he shrieked. “ If there is a law in 
England you shall have justice done upon you.” 

Madame swung round, the automatic in her 
hand. 

“And you, John Clifford, robber and man de- 
stroyer, shall have justice here and now.” 

The pistol cracked, and the bullet, passing within 
an inch of his head, smacked up against the wall. 
He leaped for the door, both Ching and Ewing 
jumped out of the way, and the crowd beyond 
scattered down the corridor. Crack went the pistol 
again, and a second bullet banged with the impact 
of a hammer on the doorpost. Clifford reached the 
opening, and was through. They heard his feet 
pattering down the alley way. 

“ Steady, lass,” warned Ewing. “ Ye might have 
killed him.” 

“ No,” said Madame. “ I shot to frighten, not to 


THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT 295 


kill. And I have done what I intended. We shall 
not hear much more of Clifford and his law. With 
all my heart I wish that he lay here now at my feet, 
and that poor Willatopy, safe and ignorantly happy, 
were still in Tops Island. Fate is very cruel, 
Sandy; it might have spared upon my hand the 
blood of Willatopy.” 


CHAPTEE XIX 


IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA 

^HE Captain of a Britisli ship is every kind of 
civil authority, from magistrate and chaplain 
to hangman. In his capacity as coroner, Robert 
Ching held an enquiry in the saloon on the morn- 
ing which followed the death of Willatopy. He was 
supported by those of his officers who were not on 
duty above and below deck. Marie, sore and griev- 
ously bruised from shoulder to knee, was carried in 
and laid at length upon a sofa. Her bones were 
unbroken, and though she suffered much pain, she 
was a very happy Marie Lambert. Madame Gilbert 
had passed the sponge of forgiveness over the maid’s 
disreputable past; her one act of self-forgetting 
courage had blotted out the treachery in France, 
and the fatal amour in Tops Island. Marie had 
won her final reprieve. 

John Clifford, broken down by days of drunken- 
ness and by the collapse of his professional ambi- 
tion, attended the inquest as the legal adviser of 
the slain Baron of Topsham. His spirit of the night 
before had faded out of him with the alcohol which 
stimulated it. It was a very miserable and draggled 
Hedge Lawyer who met for the last time his fellow 
voyagers in the Humming Top, 

I will not trouble the reader with the whole en- 
quiry, which was long and tedious. Ching, fore- 
296 


IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA 


297 


seeing scandal and legal complications when the 
tragic story came to be told in England, wrote 
down in his round, slow sailor’s hand, every word 
that was spoken, and obtained the signatures of 
all present, even that of the reluctant John Clifford, 
to the evidence as given on oath. 

No new facts were disclosed, except by Mario. 
She described how she had been awakened, and had 
felt Lord Topsham’s face against hers and his dag- 
ger’s point at her breast. She had tried to cry out, 
but his rude hand upon her mouth commanded si- 
lence. She had whispered urging him to go, and 
warning him that Madame, in the adjoining room, 
would hear. 

“ How did he get into your room? ” asked Ching. 

Marie said that he had come through Madame’s 
cabin, crawling along the floor. He must have en- 
tered by the bathroom. The door of that room 
which gave upon the corridor was always bolted, 
had naturally always been kept bolted. Willie must 
have slipped in sometime when the rooms were 
empty, and unfastened that door. The slipping of 
the bolt had not been perceived. She had been 
afraid to cry out, even when Lord Topsham re- 
moved his hand from her mouth, for the dagger 
which he carried was very sharp. She had already 
felt its point. Yet she struggled, and whispered 
that Madame would hear, that Madame would in- 
terpose furiously, and that she would be a Marie 
Lambert doomed to a cruel death in France. Lord 
Topsham’s breath smelled strongly of wine, and 
she was sure that he was half drunk. Had he been 
sober he would never have raised his hand against 
Madame Gilbert. But when Marie urged that her 


298 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


life would pay the toll for any further indiscretions, 
Willie had ground his teeth in rage. 

Tt is always Madame/ he growled. ^ I am tired 
of Madame. She stands between me and you, and 
she threatens you with death. Wait, Marie,’ he had 
said. ‘ I will kill this Madame nuisance, and then 
will come back to you. I am a great English Lord, 
and will kill anyone who interferes with me.’ ” 
Marie went on to say that Lord Topsham had 
then let her go, and turned to enter Madame’s 
room. He held the trench dagger in his right hand. 
Marie was terribly frightened, but she could not 
lie still and let Madame be murdered in her sleep. 
She did not know that Madame Gilbert was already 
awake and watching. So, as the half -drunken sav- 
age boy approached the door of communication with 
Madame’s room, she slipped out of bed, and fol- 
lowed behind him. And when he opened the door 
she jumped upon his back and screamed. 

He couldn’t kill me then,” she explained simply, 
until Madame had awakened and got ready to 
meet him. I knew that she slept with her pistol 
beside her. I jumped on Lord Topsham’s back to 
save Madame’s life.” 

A murmur of admiration ran round the table of 
the saloon. 

“ We all feel,” said Ching gravely, that your 
conduct was very brave and splendid. You risked 
your life for a mistress whom you had no cause to 
love and good reason to fear. I shall put this com- 
mendation in my report.” 

Thank you, sir,” said Marie. Of course I 
knew that if I saved Madame she would forgive me 
everything.” 


IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA 


299 


The Court smiled at this ingenuous display of 
heroism combined with regard for the main chance. 
Marie was sprung from thrifty French peasant 
stock. 

Madame followed, and told what we already 
know. She would not, she declared, have shot to 
kill if she could have stopped Willie by wounding 
him. John Clifford interposed with a question. 
Madame, he said, was a first-rate pistol shot. She 
could have hit her assailant in any part of his body 
that she pleased. Could she not have preserved her 
own life by disabling Lord Topsham^s right arm or 
breaking his leg? 

Madame, with a sad little smile, offered him her 
automatic pistol. 

It carried a .25 nickel-coated bullet,” said she. 
" A tiny bullet with no stopping power. With a 
.45 revolver and a lump of soft lead, I could have 
knocked the poor boy over long before he reached 
me. I should have fired at him immediately after 
he flung off Marie. But with this little toy I had 
no choice. When he launched himself at me I shot 
him through the heart, and should, even then, have 
been pierced by his dagger had I not evaded the 
stroke by flinging myself instantly flat on my back. 
The dagger point just missed me. If I had done 
no more than wound him, had I merely punctured 
a hole in a leg or arm, he would have had plenty 
of time to kill me. You may not believe me, Mr. 
John Clifford, but I swear to you that I did not 
shoot willingly. I loved Wdlatopy very sincerely.” 

Clifford said no more, and when Ching asked for 
his signature to the evidence he gave it without 
another word. 


300 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


find,’^ declared Ching solemnly, ‘^and so I 
shall write in my report to the English Board of 
Trade, that Madame Gilbert shot and killed Wil- 
liam, Lord Topsham, in defence of her own life, 
and that she was fully justified in what she did.” 

After the enquiry had been closed, Madame went 
to her room, and rummaged among her trunks. She 
was looking for something which she vaguely re- 
membered to have packed, and presently she found 
what she sought. Madame Gilbert, a Catholic by 
birth and upbringing, was infamously negligent of 
religious observances, yet she always, impelled by 
some inherited instinct, carried upon her travels 
a small ivory crucifix. It had been her mother’s. 
Now Madame drew forth this emblem of her loosely 
fitting faith and bore it reverently to the cabin 
where the body of Willatopy lay awaiting sea 
burial. There she stood looking down upon the face 
of the boy whom she had killed. The bright blue 
eyes were closed for ever, but the quiet, almost smil- 
ing face was that of the Willatopy of Tops Island. 
She laid the crucifix upon the boy’s breast that it 
might go into the depths with him. It was the last 
service that she could render, and, for some reason, 
it brought solace to her. 

She had never kissed Willie in life, but now she 
stooped and pressed her lips upon the cold fore- 
head. 

Willie,” she murmured, forgive the Madame 
who loved and killed you. I was the best friend 
that you ever had, Willie dear. It was better, far 
better, that you should die by my little bullet than 
that you should cease for always to be Willatopy.” 


IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA 


301 


And with that kiss of farewell, there departed from 
Madame Gilbert all sense of blood guilt. Her hand 
had been the Hand of Fate, and it had been a bounti- 
ful and kindly Fate. 

Willatopy lies in the depths of the Straits of 
Sunda. The seas are all one, and he, a sailor on 
both sides of the house, went home to the Great 
Mother upon whose bosom he had been born and 
lived. Madame^s crucifix was sewn up in his sail- 
cloth shroud, and he lies with it for ever upon his 
breast. The yacht was stopped for the ceremony, 
and the whole ship’s company with bared heads 
watched the Twenty-Eighth Lord of Topsham enter 
into his inheritance. For his true heritage was the 
Sea, which he knew and loved so well. 

As Madame told the story to me, in that room of 
mine in Whitehall — so remote in distance and in 
atmosphere from Tops Island and the Torres 
Straits — she asked me anxiously, often with tears 
glittering in those violet eyes of hers, if there was 
anything which she could have done, or left un- 
done, to thrust tragedy away from the bright young 
life of Willatopy. She had loved the boy, though 
his skin was of so very dark a brown, and his hair 
so definitely negroid. And I could do no better than 
shake my head and lament that which was inevit- 
able. The Hedge Lawyer, that little London cad, 
quickened the movement towards destruction, and 
set at naught Madame’s own kindly exertions, but 
sooner or later tragedy must have fallen, heavy 
footed, upon Willatopy’s soul and body. 

You fought and lost,” said I sadly, but in the 
end you won. I am sure of this: that when Will 


302 MADAME GILBERT’S CANNIBAL 


Toppys, the wise mad father, met beyond the stars 
the brave though erring son, the blessing of the 
father descended from Heaven upon the head and 
hand of Madame Gilbert. He knew, that beach- 
comber, from what a calamitous fate your shot had 
saved his Willatopy.” 

“ Do you really, honestly think so? ” she asked 
eagerly. 

I do, really and honestly,” said I. 

#**♦**# 

It fell to the lot of the silent, always dependable 
Chiug to speed at Singapore the parting guest. The 
Humming Top had been warped into dock, and 
there was a bustle of preparation for her cleansing, 
when the Hedge Lawyer, bearing his suit case, ap- 
peared on the main deck and accosted the skipper. 

‘‘ I am leaving you here,” said he. I shall not 
stay upon this blood-stained ship. I said little at 
your precious enquiry, for I knew that you were all 
in the interest of Sir John Toppys, your owner. I 
go now to England to make very sure that justice 
shall be done upon that murderess.” 

“I will help you on the road,” replied Ching 
serenely, and gripping the wretch by collar and 
pants, he hove him over the rail into the dock. No 
one saw him climb forth, and yet, when the water 
had run away, there was no trace of him in the 
mud — except his half-buried suit case. Hove by 
Captain Ching, he disappeared over the rail, and, 
so far as I can discover, has never since been seen. 
Roger Gatepath, who has his own underground 
methods of enquiry, declares that John Clifford has 


IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA 


803 


not returned to St, Mary Axe. The Justice” 
which he demanded against Madame Gilbert has 
never been invoked. He is not in the dock at Singa- 
pore; he must have clambered out; so much we 
know — ^but the rest is silence. 


CHAPTER XX 


MADAME GILBERT REFUSES THE HUMMING TOP 

have, if I may say so, done ns the greatest 
service.’^ 

Madame and Sir John Toppys were together in 
the Owner^s Room of the Humming Toy, and all 
had been told. 

It was not intended,’’ replied Madame Gilbert 
sadly. I have been frank with you. All the in- 
terest and all the wealth of Toppys for their num- 
berless generations would not have induced me to 
raise my hand against Willatopy. In some ways he 
was more worthy than the best of you. I was bring- 
ing him to England to put him in his place, and 
yet I am glad that Fate interposed. White blood 
drags down more than it uplifts. Willatopy in his 
own island, before the fatal knowledge of his suc- 
cession reached him, was a simple, gallant, charm- 
ing boy. Would to God that so he could have re- 
mained. But those very qualities, which made him 
so admirable as a savage youth, dragged him into 
the pit of degeneracy. He grabbed white vices with 
both hands, and sloughed off his native virtues. 
He was losing his soul very fast, lamentably fast. 
I killed him that I might save what was left.” 

‘‘You speak as if you need not have fired — to 
kill,” said Toppys slowly. 

“ At the end I had no choice,” replied Madame. 

304 


MADAME REFUSES “HUMMING TOP’’ 305 

I feel now, and have felt many times since 
the tragedy of the Humming Top, that he would 
never have leaped upon me had I spoken. My power 
over him was great. Until recently he had hon- 
oured me as a goddess. With my eyes upon his he 
could not have struck. And yet I waited for his 
attack to be delivered. I waited while he felt the 
point of the dagger, and tested the fittings on his 
hand. I might have spoken in the old friendly tone, 
which always moved him — and yet I did not. For 
it suddenly was revealed to me that here was the 
solution of his troubled destiny. Now that Willa- 
topy, the dear boy of Tops Island, was no more, his 
successor. Lord Topsham, were better dead before 
far worse disasters than death, a clean, quick death, 
overtook him. So I waited for him to spring — ^it 
was a terrible moment, and I cannot speak of it 
now without a creeping of the flesh — I waited for 
him to spring that I might shoot. I am not a pray- 
ing woman,’’ added she, but there was a prayer 
in my heart when I sped the bullet through his. I 
never loved the boy more honestly than in that in- 
stant when I deliberately slew him.” 

They turned to leave the room. 

I shall be sorry to give up my temporary owner- 
ship of the Humming Top/^ said Madame. I 
agree with Alexander that she is a bonnie wee 
beastie.” 

Will you not keep her? ” asked Toppys calmly. 

Madame shook her head. yacht, especially 
a steam yacht of a thousand tons, is too sharp-edged 
a gift for my poor hands to receive. She must cost 
t\/enty thousand a year to run, and I cannot spend 
a tithe of that amount upon my travels.” 


806 MADAME GILBERTS’ CANNIBAL 


I did not mean that you should maintain her,^^ 
said Toppys. 

Madame smiled wickedly. Sir John Toppys, 
in my day I have been offered many gifts by the 
undiscerning. Jewellery, of course. Perfectly ap- 
pointed flats and houses, of course. One refuses 
calmly from habit. I have never yet had a fully 
maintained thousand-ton yacht laid at my feet, yet 
it costs me little to refuse. Madame Gilbert, Sir 
John Toppys, is not for sale, and she is slightly 
disappointed that one whom she thought her friend 
should have offered to purchase her.’’ 

‘^You misunderstand me again,” said Sir John 
Toppys, “ I suspect wilfully. I did not offer the 
Humming Top as your purchase price. I wished 
to hint, somewhat crudely I fear, that I am a 
widower, and that ” 

He paused. Madame looked at him curiously. 
It was almost unbelievable, yet plain to see, that 
the Baronet of Wigan was tongue-tied with genuine 
emotion. She softened towards him, and her man- 
tle of cynicism fell. 

Et puis?’’ she murmured with encouragement. 

My wife has long since been dead. My two sons 
have fought through the war, and happily are un- 
hurt. My line is safe. One son is already married ; 
the other hopes soon to be married. I have no 
daughter to be an embarrassment to a stepmother. 
There is no reason, therefore, in my domestic cir- 
cumstances why Madame Gilbert should refuse to 
share my home — and my yacht.” 

“ No reason,” observed Madame reflectively. 
“ No reason, and every inducement, except the will 
of Madame Gilbert.” 


MADAME REFUSES “HUMMING TOP” 307 


Is what I ask impossible? ” 

“ Quite. Even if I personally desired to accept 
your offer, it would be impossible. You are what 
you are, because my hand opened the way. I can- 
not share in succession the hereditary honours of 
Willatopy.’^ 

Is that your only reason? he asked, his eyes 
brightening. They were the steel blue Toppys eyes, 
the eyes of Willatopy. 

^^No,” said she, and told him of her vagabond 
life. Once she had loved and married, but for the 
future was resolved to remain free. She had played 
with the hearts of men too long to submit to 
mastery. 

I understand,’’ said he, when her tale was told. 
Not even the Humming Top, not even the over- 
flowing disgusting wealth of a War Profiteer, can 
persuade you to take a husband in earnest. And 
yet when I look at you, especially now when you 
so obdurately dismiss me, I shall dearly love to 
pour my ill-gotten riches into your bonny lap.” 

So would the Chief Engineer Ewing,” quoth 
Madame, smiling. 

She moved towards the door, but Toppys had not 
yet done with her. Is there anything that I can 
do or offer which will shake your unhappy 
resolution? ” 

Women,” observed Madame contemplatively, 
are selfish toads. Their one unchanging purpose 
from the cradle to the coffin is to grab as much 
as they can from men, and to give as little as 
they can in return. I have grabbed more than most 
because I am more agreeable to look upon than are 
most. We are vampires. I am true to the purpose 


308 


MADAME GILBERTS’ CANNIBAL 


of my sex, Sir John Toppys. I have snatched at all 
I could get from you, and have refused to give any- 
thing in return. I have even asked you to forgo 
your share in Alexander’s boodle, and you have 
consented. You are a better man than I am a 
woman. You are well rid of me, even as an 
associate.” 

I shall not claim the Barony of Topsham,” said 
he. My son, when his day shall dawn, may suc- 
ceed if he will — ^it is his lawful right. But I shall 
go to my grave as Sir John Toppys. Your hand 
has given me the Barony, but my hand, no less 
resolute than yours, refuses the gift.” 

“ You are right,” said she thoughtfully. “ You 
with your yacht and I with my automatic have 
slain Willatopy, and we cannot either of us accept 
the price of blood. I am glad that you will never 
sit in the poor lad’s place.” 

She held out both her hands to him, and Toppys 
— as he had done months before on the deck of the 
Humming Top — Toppys stooped down and kissed 
her fingers. 

There is blood upon them,” she whispered. 

“And yet I can kiss them,” murmured he. 
“ Were it not that your harsh will forbids, I would 
go on kissing them all my life.” 


THE END 


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